LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



b h<\\l 

Ciiap.. , Copyright No.. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 



IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

^AND OTHER STORIES OF 
MISSIONARY WORK AMONG 
THE TELUGUS OF INDIA ^ ^ 



BY 

rev.jacob chamberlain, m.d.,d.d. 

THIRTY-SEVEN YEARS A MISSIONARY OF THE REFORMED CHURCH 
IN AMERICA, AT MADANAPALLE, INDIA 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

Rev. FRANCIS E. CLARK, D.D. 



' 'Tis not by roaming deserts wild, nor gazinsr at the sky, 
'Tis not by bathing in the stream, nor pilg^rimagfe to shrine. 
But thine own heart must thou make pure, and then, and then alone, 
Shalt thou sec Him no eye hath kenned, shalt thou behold thy King." 

Translated from V6mana, 

a Telugupoet of the twelfth century. 



FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 

Chicago 

Publishers of Evangelical Literature 



New York Chicago Toronto 




t- 



'^\ c 



\Q 



Copyright, 1896, by 
Fleming H. Revell Company 






THE NEW YORK TYPE-SETTING COMPANY 
THE CAXTON PRESS 



TO HER 

WHO FOR THIRTY-SEVEN YEARS 

HAS SHARED MY LABORS AND MY JOYS 

AND WHO SHARES THEM STILL 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Introduction, by the Rev. F. E. Clark, D.D. . n 

Preface, by the Author • i5 

Preliminary: Who are these Telugus? . . .17 
I. In the Tiger Jungle : Does God Hear Prayer ? 25 
II. The Man with the Wonderful Books . . 46 
III. Encounter with a Ten-foot Serpent, and its 

Results • • 5" 

IV. The Gospel River in India: How it Flows . 63 
V. The Gospel River in India: The "Gospel in 

Song" ^^ 

VI. The Gospel River in India: The Fleet-footed 

rw, . . 80 

Tract 

VII. Establishing a New Station: Varieties in 

Mission Work °^ 

VIII. Gospel Preaching Tours ^^ 

IX. Gospel Preaching at Hindu Fairs . . .106 

X. Treated with a Shower of Stones. . • ii5 

XI. A Fruitful Preaching Tour . • • • ^'9 

7 



8 CONTENTS 

PAGB 

XII. Our Village Cathedral 139 

XIII. The Building and Opening of a Free Read- 

ing-room AT MaDANAPALLE , , , I49 

XIV. A Brahman on the Bible . . . .161 
XV. The Village Magistrate's Death. . . 167 

XVI. Narasappa's Mother; or, Christ's Hidden 

Ones 172 

XVII. An Audience of Monkeys . . . .177 
XVIII. The Stick-to-it Missionary . . . .181 
XIX. Unhatchable Ink-bottles ; or, Taught by a 

Hen . . 188 

XX. Winding up a Horse 193 

XXI. Baptism of a Brahman 204 

XXII. BImgAni RAmanna; or, Unreckoned Fruits 208 
XXIII. The Margosa-tree and the Hindu Temple 213 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Photograph of the Author . . .. Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

A Noted Banyan Tree 64 

Section of Banyan Tree, Showing its Mode of 
Growth .,.....,. 90 

A Hindu Village 106 

Group of Hindu Idols, out of Employment . . 120 
Native Christian Wedding Group . . . .194 
The Mission Church, Madanapalle .... 204 
The Gopurams of a Hindu Temple . , . .214 



INTRODUCTION 



I HAVE long held the opinion, and often ex- 
pressed it, that the young people of our land need 
not patronize the dime novel or the "penny- 
dreadful " to find stirring adventure and thrilling 
narrative. 

There is one source which furnishes stories of 
intense and dramatic interest, abounding in novel 
situations and spiced with abundant adventure; 
and this source is at the same time the purest 
and most invigorating fountain at which our 
youth can drink. y 

To change the figure, this is a mine hitherto 
largely unworked ; it contains rich nuggets of ore, 
which will well repay the prospector in this new 
field. 

I know of no one better fitted to delve in this 
mine and bring this rich ore to the surface than 
the author of this book. For many years a mis- 
sionary in India, the fairy-land of romance, a 
fascinating writer, a lover of youth, one who 
knows how to make even a commonplace story 

11 



12 INTRODUCTION^ 

interesting and an interesting story fascinating — 
who could better write a book of missionary ad- 
venture than Dr. Jacob Chamberlain? 

Already scores of articles from his pen have 
appeared in our leading religious periodicals, by 
whose readers they are eagerly sought ; and some 
of them have obtained an immense circulation in 
leaflet form. They have stirred the imagination 
and quickened the missionary zeal of a multitude 
of people. 

The very titles of these chapters engage the 
attention of every reader : " In the Tiger Jungle," 
*' Winding up a Horse," " Encounter with a Ten- 
foot Serpent," " The Stick-to-it Missionary," 
" An Audience of Monkeys," and others no less 
striking. 

What young person could read these titles 
without desiring to know something more of this 
charming book? But the best of this volume 
does not lie in the taking titles of its chapters, in 
its fascinating style, or in the stirring adventure 
which it narrates ; it lies in the genuine mission- 
ary fervor, which cannot but impart itself to those 
who peruse it, and in the realistic and vivid pic- 
tures of missionary life, which make the countries 
described, and their people, and the work done 
for them live again in the glowing printed page. 

I believe that this book will increase the host 
of consecrated young men and women who will 



INTRODUCTION 13 

be willing to devote their lives to the Master's 
service in far-off lands. It will kindle anew the 
fires of devotion in the hearts of a vastly larger 
multitude who must stay at home and do their 
missionary work in America. It will prompt the 
desire of many to give largely and regularly to 
the great cause of world-wide missions, in order 
that they may be at work on both sides of the 
globe for the one Master twenty-four hours in 
every day — personally in their own land, and 
through their representative in some land across 
the sea. It will face every reader with the demand 
that he or she must " go or send." It will make 
missions a real and living thing to a multitude to 
whom it is now a misty dream of heroic service. 
It is a book which may well be placed in every 
Sunday-school library, which should be owned 
by every Christian Endeavor Society and mission 
circle, which many Christian parents and teachers 
will find admirably suited for a Christmas or 
birthday present, and which, wherever it goes, 
will carry its own lesson and its own welcome. 

Francis E. Clark. 

Boston, July 20, 1896. 



PREFACE 

Urgent requests from many sources, some 
from personal friends, others from entire stran- 
gers, by letter and in person, that there might be 
issued in book form a collection of sketches and 
other articles which have appeared from my pen 
in a wide range of periodicals in America and 
other lands during the past years, have led me, 
on the eve of my return to India, to prepare such 
a collection, only to find that I had gathered far 
more material than should appear in one volume. 
I have therefore selected a small portion of the 
material I had prepared, and present it in this 
volume. My selection may not always have been 
wise; in fact, I have not brought in one half of 
the articles that have been specially asked for, 
lest the book be so bulky as to be forbidding. 
That can, however, be remedied by the issue of 
another series, should it be called for. I have 
also in preparation a more pretentious work on 
India and the Hindus, which, if God spare my 
life, I hope to be able after a time to present to 
those interested in the Orient. 

15 



16 PREFACE 

This little volume I now send forth with the 
fervent prayer that God would so use these simple 
sketches as only to glorify His own holy name 
and advance His cause and kingdom at the ends 
of the earth. 

Jacob Chamberlain. 

2$ East Twenty-second Street, New York, 
September, 1896. 



PRELIMINARY 



WHO ARE THESE TELUGUS? 

The Hindus of to-day are not the original 
inhabitants of India. In the earlier ages the 
peninsula of India was sparsely populated by a 
race whom we may consider the aborigines, who 
were smaller of stature and darker of color, who 
had no written language, and of whom we know 
but little. 

About the time of Abraham the tribes of Cen- 
tral Asia began to migrate. The Dravidian tribes 
pushed through the mountains into India, and, 
pressing on southward, occupied what is now the 
Madras Presidency, together with parts of Bom- 
bay and the native kingdoms of Hyderabad, 
Mysore, and Travancore. These immigrants are 
spoken of in Sanskrit literature as the pancha 
Dravida, or the " five Dravidian tribes." They 
were distinct tribes, each having its own language, 
its own customs, and its own independent organi- 
zation. They seem, however, to have been fed- 

17 



18 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

erated and working in harmony, all seeking for 
new homes in a more genial clime. 

The Tamil tribe was in the forefront, and did 
not rest until its advance-guard had reached Cape 
Comorin, at the southern extremity of India. 
They occupied the country from that point north- 
ward four hundred miles to Madras, and in width 
from the Bay of Bengal to the Western Ghats, or 
mountains, which, like a backbone, reach from 
south to north fifty to one hundred miles distant 
from the shores of the Sea of Arabia. 

To the west of these Western Ghats, between 
them and the sea, the Malayalim people located, 
occupying what is now the kingdom of Travan- 
core. They are less in number than the Tamils 
and are closely allied to them. 

North of them, on the Sea of Arabia and stretch- 
ing out over the modern kingdom of Mysore, the 
Kanarese tribe found its abode. They number more 
than the MalayaHms, but less than the Tamils. 

The Telugu tribe came last. They occupied 
the region lying on the Bay of Bengal, from 
Madras north to Ganjam, and westward to and 
including part of Mysore and the most of Hy- 
derabad, a region more than five hundred miles 
long and two to three hundred miles broad, while 
the Marathis occupied the region westward of 
them all, up the coast of the Arabian Sea. Other 
tribes followed on and occupied all North India, 



H^HO ARE THESE TELUGUS? 19 

The Telugus are the most numerous of all the 
Dravidian peoples, numbering at the present time 
between eighteen and twenty millions. 

Still later, in the time between Moses and 
David, there came another immigration into 
India from the higher table-lands of Asia. 

The Aryans, our ancestors, were seized with 
the spirit of migration. One division went west- 
ward into Europe and became the progenitors of 
the Greeks, the Latins, the Saxons, and the Eng- 
lish. The other division sought for more south- 
ern climes, and, pressing through the Himalayan 
mountain-passes, first settled in North India and 
then gradually spread themselves through all the 
country, not as conquerors, but in comity among 
the other peoples. 

The Dravidian tribes had brought their own 
fairly well cultivated languages with them, and 
a religion, of which little is now known. The 
Aryans brought with them the Sanskrit language, 
the elder and more ornate sister of the Greek and 
the Latin. They brought also the Vedas, their 
scriptures, and the Hinduism which is inculcated 
in the Vedas. The Vedas taught in the main a 
pure monotheism, and gave essentially true ideas 
of God and man and sin and sacrifice. 

About the time of their arrival in North India, 
however, there was evolved a second series of 
religious books, the Upanishads, or commentaries 



20 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

on the Vedas, the Shastras, and later the Puranas. 
In these appeared the first glimmerings of the 
Hindu triad, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, with 
their host of attendant minor gods; then first 
appeared the system of caste. 

The Aryans divided themselves into three 
castes: the Brahmans, created, as they taught, 
from the brain of Brahma; the Kshatriyas, or 
soldier caste, created by a subsequent act of 
Brahma, from his shoulders; the Vaisyas, or 
merchant and artisan caste, from his loins. Of 
the Dravidians and other earlier immigrants they 
constituted the great fourth caste, the Sudras, 
whom they declared to have been created by 
Brahma from his thighs. They were to be the 
farmers, mechanics, and laborers. They are sub- 
divided into more than forty distinct castes, who 
will not eat together nor intermarry. Those who 
remained of the still earlier inhabitants, the abo- 
rigines, became the Pariahs in South India, with 
similar non-caste people in the other portions of 
the country. 

Caste is thus a religious distinction, not a so- 
cial. There was a different creation of each. If 
their system be admitted, the Brahman may 
justly say to the others, " Stand by thyself ; 
come not near me, for I am holier than thou.'* 
This caste system is one of the greatest barriers 
to the introduction of the religion of Jesus, which 



IVHO ARE THESE TELUGUS ? 21 

proclaims to the proud Brahman that ** God hath 
made of one blood all nations of men." 

The Brahmans mingled among all the other 
peoples of India, and from their superior educa- 
tion and mental power soon gained an ascendancy 
and succeeded in inducing all the earlier peoples 
to accept their religion and their caste system. 
They became the sacerdotal class, the priests and 
school-teachers of all India. They did not at- 
tempt to introduce their language, the Sanskrit, 
except as the language of ritual, but themselves 
adopted for daily use and further cultivated the 
languages of the Tamils, the Telugus, the Kana- 
rese, and others of the preceding immigrants 
among whom they resided. 

The religion which they introduced taught of 
the Hindu triad, Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the 
Preserver, and Siva the Destroyer, and a host of 
other gods, theoretically inferior to the triad, 
but with practically much greater influence over 
the daily Hves and the welfare of the people. 
These minor gods are far more feared and far 
more worshiped by the people than the triad. 
They hold that there are three hundred and thirty 
millions of gods, male and female, named and 
unnamed, and the country is filled with shrines 
and temples, in which are images of multitudes 
of these gods, or idols, to receive the homage, 
the worship, the sacrifices, of the people. 



22 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

The Brahmans further taught the doctrine of 
transmigration, which is that at death the soul 
simply passes on one stage in its existence to be 
born again in another body — in a higher order 
if he had done more good than evil, in a lower if 
the evil had exceeded the good. If, after count- 
less transmigrations, the account of evil were 
canceled by the amount of good deeds performed, 
and sufficient merit were attained, the soul would 
then be absorbed into that of the Deity, and in- 
dividual existence would cease. This is their 
doctrine of Nirvana, or final absorption, which is 
the highest goal to which a Hindu can attain. 

To obtain the needed merit a system of duties 
is prescribed. It consists of the daily and strict 
observance of all caste rules, the performance of 
the prescribed acts of worship, sacrifices, ablutions, 
pilgrimages to holy shrines, bathing in the sacred 
rivers, penances, self-torture, hermit life apart 
from one's kind in complete isolation in a desert; 
and thus it is hoped that the transmigrations of 
the soul will be brought to a speedier end and 
Nirvana be attained. The mass of the people, 
however, are content with the daily observance 
of caste rules and the abundant worship of their 
multitudinous idols. 

This very brief outline of the Hinduism of 
to-day would be incomplete without the further 
statement that vast numbers of Hindus, now 



PVHO ARE THESE TEWGUS? 23 

educated in Western learning, no longer at heart 
hold to the system of modern Hinduism as above 
outlined, although they still outwardly conform 
to the rules of caste and of ritual. There is an 
unrest among all the educated classes and a look- 
ing for something different. Some are seeking a 
revival of ancient Vedic Hinduism, an essentially 
pure monotheism, with no caste, no idolatry, no 
senseless ritual. Others are seeking an eclectic 
system, aiming to obtain the moraHty and uplift- 
ing influence observed in Christianity without 
accepting Christ. Others, in vast numbers, are 
veering away into blank agnosticism. All these 
maintain an outwardly very hostile attitude to- 
ward evangelical Christianity. There is never- 
theless a quiet, unobserved undercurrent among 
very many toward an open acceptance of Jesus 
of Nazareth as the Saviour of the whole world. 

This condition of unrest, of the expectancy of 
some change soon to come, which is freely ad- 
mitted even in the native newspapers, both in 
English and in the vernaculars, gives a golden 
opportunity for pressing the claims of Christianity 
upon the people of India at the present juncture. 
It emphasizes the terrible responsibility resting 
on the church of Christ, lest this God-given op- 
portunity pass by, never to be repeated. 

For more than a third of a century I have been 
engaged in pressing this work among the Telugu 



24 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

people, of whom I have given some account above, 
and the following pages contain incidents, most 
of them jotted down at the time, which have oc- 
curred in connection with my missionary labors 
among these Telugus. 



IN THE TIGER JUNGLE: DOES GOD HEAR 
PRAYER ? 

It was in September, 1863. I was taking a 
long exploring, preaching, and Bible-distributing 
journey up through the native kingdom of 
Hyderabad and on into Central India, where no 
missionary had ever before worked. It was a 
journey of twelve hundred miles on horseback, 
of four to five months, and through a region little 
known and difficult to traverse, and by many re- 
garded as exceedingly dangerous. Indeed, be- 
fore starting I had received messages and letters 
from numbers of missionaries and laymen, warn- 
ing me of the danger, and begging me not to 
throw away my life and end disastrously a mis- 
sionary career so near its beginning. 

I had surveyed the danger, measured the ob- 
stacles, and counted the cost, and considering 
none of them sufficient to cancel the command, 
" Go ye into all the world," I had covenanted for 

25 



26 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

the journey with the " I will be with you always," 
and started on my way. I was accompanied by 
four native assistants, picked men from the larger 
number who had volunteered to be my compan- 
ions. We took with us two cart-loads of Scrip- 
tures — Gospels, New Testaments, and Bibles — 
and tracts, chiefly in the Telugu language, but 
with a smaller supply in each of the five languages 
we would meet, and which could be used by some 
of our party, for each one of us could preach in 
two or three. 

We had already been out two and a half 
months. My sturdy Saugur pony had carried 
me seven hundred miles, and we had thus far dis- 
tributed, chiefly by sales, seven thousand Scrip- 
tures and books. 

Of the dangers promised us we had experi- 
enced some. In one city, indeed, we had seen 
the mob, angry because we preached another 
God than theirs, swing to the iron gates, shutting 
us within, and tear up the paving-stones to stone 
us with ; but, by an artifice obtaining permission 
to tell them just one story before they should 
begin the stoning, I told the story of the cross in 
the graphic language that the Master Himself 
gave me that day, and the mob became an ab- 
sorbed audience, down the cheeks of many a 
member of which I saw the tears trickle, as I 
pictured Christ upon the cross, in agony for us, 



DOES GOD HEAR PRAYER? 27 

that we all might be freed from sin. The stones 
were thrown into the gutter, and when I had done 
they bought and paid for many Gospels and tracts 
to tell them more of that wonderful God-man of 
whom they then first heard. 

We had been washed away by a flood, my pony 
and I being whelmed under by a tropical torrent 
that rolled swiftly down a river ordinarily fordable 
as we were in the middle of it crossing ; but we 
had all succeeded in swimming to the same bank. 
We had been kept awake through the night 
more than once by the roaring of the man-eating 
tigers around our camp in the jungle, as we 
heaped wood and brush upon our camp-fires all 
night long, lest in the morning there should be 
no one left to tell the tale. We had passed 
through a jungle where three men had been car- 
ried off by tigers from the same cart-track in 
broad dayUght just a few days before ; but the 
" I will be with you always " had all the way 
forefended us from harm. 

We had now, however, come to the greatest 
strait in our journey. We had reached our 
farthest northern point, up among the mountain 
Gonds, or Khonds, who for centuries had offered 
human sacrifices; and after telling them of the 
one and all-sufficient sacrifice for sin by Jesus 
Christ, we had turned to the east and south on our 
return journey by another route. We were to 



28 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

find a government steamer when we struck the 
Pranhita River, an affluent of the great Godavery. 
The government was then endeavoring to open 
up those rivers to navigation, and had succeeded 
in placing one steamer on the river above the 
second cataract, to run up to the third. The gov- 
ernment officers in charge of the works, having 
heard months before of my proposed journey, had 
offered to send that steamer up to the third 
cataract on any date I would name if I would 
but take the journey and transport myself and 
party rapidly through that stretch of fever jungle, 
which was deadly at this season of the year. I 
had named the date and received assurances that 
we could depend on the steamer , being there. 
The heavy torrents of the monsoon had come 
on unexpectedly early and were unprecedentedly 
severe. The Godavery became three miles wide 
of tumultuous waters. Village after village on 
its shores was swept away. We watched on the 
banks for a week. A messenger then succeeded 
in getting through to tell us that the steamer, in 
attempting to stem that fierce current to come to 
us, had broken its machinery and could not get 
to us. We must then march through that seventy- 
five miles of doomed jungle to reach the next 
steamer, which was to meet us at the foot of the 
second cataract and take us down to the first, 
whence another would take us on. 



DOES GOD HEAR PRAYER? 29 

The government commissioner of the central 
provinces at Sironcha (for the north bank of the 
Godavery is under British rule) kindly came to 
our relief, and, detaching thirty-six coolies from 
the government works, ordered them, with an 
armed guard to keep them from deserting, to 
convey our tents, baggage, medicine-chests, and 
remaining books down to the foot of the second 
cataract, and we started on. 

I need not stop to recount the exciting episode 
of our desertion, on the north bank of the Goda- 
very, with no human habitation anywhere near, 
by the whole party of coolies, armed guard and 
all, nor of our desperate efforts, finally successful, 
to cross the Godavery's three miles' flood in order 
that we might reach a large town of the Nizam's 
dominions, the headquarters of a high native 
official, a sort of deputy governor, of whom I 
hoped to obtain help. 

Forcing my wiry pony through the three miles 
of flooded marsh that lay between the river and 
the town, I appeared at the door of this magnate 
and politely presented my appeal to him for 
coolies to take my party down his side of the 
river to the second cataract. He as politely told 
me it was an utter impossibility ; that at this 
season of the year, with the fever so deadly and 
the man-eating tigers so ravenous, — now that the 
herdsmen had taken their flocks and herds away 



30 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

to the healthier highlands over the fever season, 
so that they had no flocks to prey upon, — and the 
floods and back-waters from the river damming the 
way, no cooHes could be induced to go through. 

I told him that I must in some way get down 
to the second cataract, that the steamer that was 
to come for us had broken down, and that I must 
have the coolies. I took from my pocket and 
slowly unrolled a long parchment paper docu- 
ment, a hookam, or firman, from the Nizam, which 
the British minister at that court had kindly 
pressed upon me as I had tarried a few days at 
the capital of the kingdom in passing, saying 
that, though I had not asked for it, he would sleep 
better if he knew I had it in my possession, for I 
knew not what I would pass through, nor how 
much I might need it. I had not thus far 
opened it. 

The need had now come. In it the Nizam, at 
the request of the British minister, had not only 
authorized my journey, but ordered any of his 
officials, of whatever rank, to render any assis- 
tance I should call for, either in the way of protec- 
tion, transportation, or supplies, at the shortest 
notice and under the highest penalties for non- 
performance. The moment the deputy governor 
saw the great royal seal his whole appearance 
changed, and, shouting in imperious tones to his 
belted and armed attendants, he ordered them to 



DOES GOD HEAR PRAYER? 31 

run with all speed, each to one of the surrounding 
villages, and bring in, by force if necessary, the 
quota of bearers which each village was bound to 
furnish for a royal progress or for a journey thus 
authorized. 

I had called for forty-four stalwart men, for I 
felt sure that more than my original thirty-six 
would be needed before we reached the next 
steamer. In an incredibly short time the forty- 
four bearers appeared ; they went at once down 
to the river and brought up all our goods, and 
with them came the native preachers. They 
placed the goods in front of the magnate's house. 

I made a harangue to them as they stood in a 
row, each man by his burden, telling them I was 
sorry to be obliged to compel them to go through 
the jungle at such a time, or to go ourselves, but 
we must go ; that, to show them that I meant to 
treat them well, I should now give each one in 
advance as much hire as he had ever received for 
going through to the cataract, and that on reach- 
ing there I should pay each one twice as much 
more, in view of the extra risk they ran. 

Asking the magistrate what the highest pay 
was, I placed that sum, in the Nizam's coinage, 
in the hands of each man, with the magistrate as 
witness; and when each of the forty-four had 
grasped it in his palm I told them that now they 
were sealed to accompany me through.; that any 



32 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

one who attempted to desert me would bring the 
consequences on his own head ; that I had been 
trifled with the day before, and deserted by those 
north-shore coolies, who had had no " sealing 
money," as they call an advance in pay; that I 
would not be trifled with again ; and took out my 
long navy revolver from my belt and examined 
its loading, leaving them to draw their own in- 
ferences. The magistrate also harangued them, 
and told them that, traveHng under such author- 
ization as this gentleman had, they would be pub- 
licly whipped and put in prison if they appeared 
back at their homes without a line from me that 
they had taken me through. 

To make still more sure, I had separated them 
into four squads of eleven men each, ordering 
each squad to march in a compact body, and 
placing one of the native preachers in charge of 
each party, to march with them and watch them 
and give me instant signal if any one put down 
his burden except at my command. The two 
royal guides of the region had been ordered to 
guide us through, and, promised a high reward, 
had sworn faithfulness. 

We struck into the jungle. We had to go 
single file. Foot-paths there had been, but now 
choked and grown over from the long rains. 
The second senior native preacher went with the 
first eleven, the senior preacher at the rear of the 



DOES GOD HEAR PRAYER? 33 

last party. The pouring rain would drench us 
for a half-hour, and then the sun, blazing forth 
between the sundered clouds, would broil us. 
The country was flooded and reeking; the bushes 
were loaded and dripping. Get through we must, 
or the steamer at the second cataract might not 
wait for us, and we would then have to march 
through another iever stretch. 

In spite of all my precautions, I felt very sus- 
picious that an effort would be made to desert us 
before we came to the worst point, and was on 
the constant watch. Cantering by the whole line 
where the width of the path allowed, I would stop 
at the front and watch, and count every man and 
bundle until all had passed, and then canter on 
ahead, scanning each man as I went, and halt 
again. So we went on hour by hour, halting only 
an hour for lunch at midday. 

About 4 P.M. I fancied I saw an uneasiness 
among the coolies, and rode back and forth more 
constantly. Three bands had passed me, the 
fourth was filing by. There was a sharp bend in 
the path ; the last two coolies had not appeared. 
Quick as thought, striking spur, I dashed across 
the hypotenuse of the triangle, and jumped my 
little pony over the bushes into the edge of the 
path again just as the two coolies had put down 
their burdens and were springing into the jungle. 
"What are you doing?" said I, with the muzzle 



34 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

of my pistol at one man's ear. Trembling as 
though I had dropped from the clouds, they seized 
their burdens and ran on, overtaking the others. 
Following, and dashing up the cavalcade to see if 
all was right ahead, I stopped and dismounted, 
and appeared to be tightening my saddle-girths, 
purposely to allow those two men to report to the 
others what had taken place. 

They did report, and word was passed along 
the Hne to look out how they attempted to de- 
sert, for that they two had tried it when the 
white foreigner, the d/iora, was nowhere near, and 
as they sprang into the bushes the dhora dropped 
down from the clouds between them, horseback, 
with his six-eyed gun in his hand, cocked, and it 
was a wonder their brains were not scattered. 
And from the way they all looked at me as I rode 
by again, with my pistol in hand, I knew that 
superstition was now my ally. They did not 
know that I would not shoot a man, and my 
" six-eyed gun " and my mysterious appearance 
as reported had more terror for them just then 
than the as yet unseen tigers in the jungle. And 
on we marched. 

But now a new and seemingly insurmountable 
difficulty confronted us. The dank jungle, the 
rain, the fever, the tigers, had been taken into 
account, but in spite of them we had determined 
to push through and reach the second catara( t 



DOES GOD HEAR PRAYER? 35 

before the Sunday. But difficulties breed. We 
now met two fleet-footed, daring huntsmen, who 
had been down to a point two miles beyond to 
inspect their traps, and were on the full run back 
to shelter for the night. Swift and sure of foot, 
with no impediment, they could before dark make 
the last village we had passed as we entered the 
jungle in the morning. 

We halted them to inquire about the region 
ahead. We knew that some two miles in front 
was an affluent of the Godavery, which ran down 
from the bluffs at our right, and which we had 
expected to ford and pitch our camp for the night 
on an open knoll a little distance beyond it, 
where, with bright camp-fires and watchfulness, 
we could pass the night in comparative safety. 
But from these hunters we learned that the back- 
water of the Godavery flood, which was thirty 
feet higher than usual, had made these affluents 
absolutely unfordable. 

" Was there no boat? " 

" None." 

" No material for a raft? " 

"None whatever." 

And on the hunters dashed for safety. The 
two royal guides and I had called them apart 
alone and questioned them. The guides knew 
the country well, but this unprecedentedly high 
back-water was entirely unexpected, and they 



36 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

seemed dazed by the news. The party kept 
plodding on. We were marching about a mile 
from the southern bank of the Godavery and 
parallel with it ; two miles farther south were the 
high bluffs, but with dense, impenetrable, thorny 
rattan jungle between us and them. The country 
between river and bluff was flat and flooded. 

We knew of only this knoll beyond this affluent 
where we could encamp. Ten miles beyond it 
again was another affluent, but that would be 
flooded as much as this. Still, could we not in 
some way get across this one and secure safety 
for one night? 

'' Guides, if we press on to this little river, can 
we not make a raft of some kind and get over 
before dark? " 

**Alas! there are no dry trees," they said; 
*' and these green jungle-trees will sink of them- 
selves in the water, even if there were time to fell 
them." 

" Is there no knoll on this side that we can 
pitch on? " 

'*No; from river to bluff it is all like this." 
We were standing in wet and mud as we talked. 

" Keep marching on ; I will consider what 
to do." 

I drew back and rode behind the marching 
column. The native preachers had partly over- 
heard the statement about the affluent being un- 



DOES QOD HEAR PRAYER r 3? 

Cfossable. From my countenance as I fell back 
they gathered that we were in straits ; they knew 
that in an hour it would be sunset ; dense clouds 
even now made it seem growing dark. Already 
we could hear the occasional fierce, hungry roar of 
the tigers in the rattan jungle at our right. I said 
not a word to my assistants, but I spoke to God. 
As my horse tramped on in the marshy path my 
heart went up and claimed the promised presence. 
" Master, was it not for Thy sake that we came 
here ? Did we not covenant with Thee for the jour- 
ney through ? Have we not faithfully preached 
Thy name the whole long way ? Have we shirked 
any danger, have we quailed before any foe? 
Didst Thou not promise, * I will be with thee ' ? 
Now we need Thee ; we are in blackest danger 
for this night. Only Thou canst save us from 
this jungle, these tigers, this flood. O Master! 
Master! show me what to do!" 

An answer came, not audible, but distinct as 
though spoken in my ear by human voice : ** Turn 
to the left, to the Godavery, and you will find 
rescue." 

Riding rapidly forward, I overtook the guides. 
" How far is it to the Godavery? " 

*' A good mile." 

'' Is there no village on its banks? " 

" No, none within many miles, and the banks 
are all overflowed." 



38 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

" Is there no mound, no rising ground on which 
we could camp, out of this water?" 

'* It is all low and flat like this." 

I drew apart and prayed again as we still 
plodded on. Again came the answer, " Turn to 
the left, to the Godavery, and you will find 
rescue." Again I called to the guides and ques- 
tioned them : ** Are yo-u sure there is no rising 
ground by the river where we can pitch, with the 
river on one side for protection and camp-fires 
around us on the other, through the night? " 

** None whatever." 

" Think well ; is there no dry timber of which 
we could make a raft? " 

" If there were any it would all be washed away 
by these floods." 

** Is there no boat of any sort on the river? I 
have authority to seize anything I need." 

" None nearer than the cataract." 

" How long would it take us to reach the 
Godavery by the nearest path?" 

" Half an hour; but it would be so much time 
lost, for we would have to come back here again, 
and cut our way through this jungle to the bluff, 
and climb that ; there is no other way of getting 
around these two flooded streams that we must 
pass to reach the cataract." 

" How long would it take us to cut our way 
through to the bluff? " 



DOES GOD HEAR PRAYER} 39 

" At least six hours ; it will be dark in an hour." 

*' What shall we do for to-night? " 

'' God knows." And they looked the despair 

they felt. 

I drew aside again and prayed as I rode on. 
" Turn to the left, to the Godavery, and you will 
find rescue," came the response the third time. 
It was not audible ; none of those near heard it. 
I cannot explain it, but to me it was as distinct as 
though spoken by a voice in my ear ; it thrilled 
me. " God's answer to my prayer," said I, " I 
cannot doubt. I must act, and that instantly." 

Hastening forward to the guides at the head of 
the column, " Halt ! " said I, in a voice to be heard 
by all. *' Turn sharp to the left. Guides, show 
us the shortest way to the Godavery. Quick!" 

They remonstrated stoutly that it was only 
labor lost, that we should be in a worse plight 
there than here, for the river might rise higher 
and wash us away in the darkness of the night. 

'' Obey ! " sai'd I. " March sharp, or night will 
come. I am master here and intend to be obeyed. 
Show the way to the river." 

They glanced at the fourteen-inch revolver that 
I held in my hand ready for any beast that should 
spring upon us. They suspected that it might 
be used on something besides a beast, and, one 
saying to the other, *' Come on, we've got to go," 
started on. 



40 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

All the party had surrounded me. My native 
preachers looked up inquiringly at my awed face. 
" There is rescue at the river," was all I said. 
How could I say more? Providentially we had 
just come to where an old path led at right angles 
to our former course and directly toward the river, 
and down that path we went. The step of all was 
quicker than before. " The dhora has heard of 
some help at the river," I overheard the coolies 
say to one another. I had heard of help, but 
what it was I knew not. My anxiety seemed to 
have gone ; there was an intense state of expec- 
tancy in its place. Half a mile from the river I 
spurred forward past the guides; I knew the 
coolies would not desert me now. There was no 
place of safety they could reach for the night; 
they would cling around me for protection. 

I cantered out from among the bushes to the 
bank, keenly observant. There, right under my 
feet, was a large flatboat tied to a tree at the 
shore, with two men upon it trying to keep it 
afloat in the rising and falling current. 

" How did this boat get here? " said I. 

" Oh, sir, please don't be angry with us," said 
the boatmen, taking me to be an officer of the 
British India government, to whom the boat be- 
longed, and thinking I was taking them to task 
for not keeping the boat at its proper station. 
" We tried our best to keep the boat from coming 



DOES GOD HEAR PRAYER? 41 

here, but, sir, it seemed as though it was possessed. 
This morning we were on our station on the upper 
river, caring for the boat as usual, when a huge 
rolling wave came rushing down the river, and 
snapped the cables, and swept the boat into the 
current. We did our utmost to get it back to 
that bank of the river, but it would go farther and 
farther out into the current. The more we pulled 
for the British bank, the more it would work out 
toward the Nizam's. We have fought all day to 
keep it from coming here, but it seemed as though 
a supernatural power was shoving the boat over, 
and an hour ago we gave up, and let it float in 
here, and tied it up for safety to this tree. Don't 
be angry, sir ; as soon as the river goes down or 
gets smooth we will get the boat back where it 
belongs. Don't have us punished for letting it 
come here; we could not help it." 

" All right, my men," said I. " I take com- 
mand of this boat; I have authority to use any 
government property I require on this journey. 
I shall use the boat, and reward you well, and give 
you a letter to your superior that will clear you 
of all blame." 

The boat, a large flatboat with strong railings 
along both sides and square ends to run upon the 
shore, had been built by the British military 
authorities in the troublous times following the 
mutiny in those regions, and placed on an affluent 



42 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

of the Godavery, higher up on the north bank, to 
ferry artillery and elephants across in their puni- 
tive expeditions, and it was still kept there. 
These men were paid monthly wages to keep it 
always ready at its station, in case of sudden need. 

Who had ordered that tidal wave in the morn- 
ing of that day, that had torn the boat from its 
moorings and driven it so many miles down the 
river, that had thwarted every endeavor of the 
frightened boatmen to force it to the north shore, 
and had brought it to the httle cove-Hke recess 
just where we would strike the river? Who but 
He on whose orders we had come; He who had 
said, '* I will be with you ;" He who knew before- 
hand the dire straits in which we would be in that 
very place, on that very day, that very hour; He 
who had told us so distinctly, " Turn to the left, 
to the Godavery, and you will find rescue"? I 
bowed my head, and in amazed reverence I 
thanked my God for this signal answer to our 
pleading prayer. 

The guides now came in sight through the 
bushes, with all the party following, and looked 
dazed as they saw me quietly arranging to put 
our whole party on the boat for the night ; and I 
heard some say to others, " How did the dhora 
know of this boat being here, and come right out 
on to it? None of us knew of it or could have 
found it." 



DOES COD HEAR PRAYER? 43 

To my native preachers I simply said, " God 
heard our prayers, and this is the answer;" for I 
knew that they had been praying on foot while I 
was praying on horseback. ** Yes," said they, 
reverently ; " He has heard our prayer and de- 
livered us. We will never doubt Him again." 

We pitched our raoti^ or long, low soldiers' 
tent, upon the boat. It exactly covered it, so 
that we tied the eaves "of the tent to the railings 
of the boat and made a tight house and a secure 
abode for the night, and within it the whole party 
were able to gather with all the baggage. Before 
dark all hands had gathered a sufficiency of wood 
and brush to keep a bright camp-fire burning 
through the night on the shore at the end of the 
boat. It had not rained for the last hour and a 
half before we reached the boat, nor did it begin 
again until we were all safely housed on the boat 
and the camp-fire well burning, with such large 
logs well on fire that it burned on with replenish- 
ing, in spite of the rain, through the night ; and 
it was well that it did, for the tigers had scented 
us and were eager for prey. 

The tent was large enough for us all if we sat 
up, but not to lie down in ; and I sat watching at 
the shore end of the boat, pistol in hand, through 
the night, lest, in spite of the fire, a tiger should 
try to spring on. We heard their roaring and 
snarling in the bushes near at hand, and once I 



U m THE riGEk JUNGLE 

fancied I saw the glaring eyes of a royal tiger 
peering at us between the two nearest bushes. 
But " He shall give His angels charge over thee, 
to keep thee in all thy ways," was the thought 
that kept running through my mind after we had, 
as we settled down for the night, read the Ninety - 
first Psalm in the beautiful Telugu language, and 
offered up prayers of thanksgiving and praise to 
the Most High, under the shadow of whose wings 
we were abiding. 

At the dawn of day, taking down our tent, we 
shoved into the stream and floated down twelve 
miles, past both affluent streams, that were too 
high for us to ford, and until the roaring of the 
cataract warned us that we were just coming into 
the rapids ; and there we moored our boat and left 
it, that the coolies, after they should have taken 
us to the foot of the barrier, might come back and 
in it go up again past those rivers and so reach 
their home. 

Of our twenty miles' farther march around the 
cataract and rapids, in the alternating blazing sun 
and drenching rain, when one after another of my 
native assistants fell under that terrible jungle 
fever, and each, in a state of unconsciousness, was 
tied in a blanket to a bamboo, hammock-like, and 
thus borne onward by the extra coolies that I had 
provided for just such an emergency ; while twice 
I almost fell from my horse from the power of the 



DOES GOD HEAR PRAYER? 45 

blistering sun between the rains, but in answer to 
prayer received strength to mount again and pro- 
ceed, myself leading the party ; of our reaching 
the river again, and the coolies' joy at receiving 
their promised double pay, and bounding off for 
the boat and home ; of the smoke of the coming 
steamer at last appearing, after we had been wait- 
ing in that fever bed for a week ; of it and another 
carrying us down two hundred miles of river into 
open land and inhabited towns again ; of our 
farther journey southward, and all reaching home 
two months later, restored, guarded, guided, and 
brought there in safety by the *' I am with you 
always," I must not now write. 

I have tried to give a vivid picture of the events 
of that pivotal day, but nothing can equal the 
vivid consciousness we had that day of the pres- 
ence of the Master; nothing can surpass the 
vividness of the certitude that God did intervene 
and save us. 

Some who have not tested it may sneer and 
doubt; but we five know that God hears prayer. 



II 

THE MAN WITH THE WONDERFUL BOOKS 

*' Are you the man with the wonderful books, 
and have you any more of them ? '* 

The question was put to me by half a dozen 
men, on an open plain near a village in the north- 
ern part of the native kingdom of Hyderabad, in 
India. I had ridden on in advance of my party 
to seek for a good halting-place. These men had 
evidently seen me as I came horseback across the 
plain, fending off the scorching sun with a double 
umbrella, and had come out from the village to 
meet me. 

*' Brothers," I had said, as we passed the polite 
salutations of the Telugu country, ** brothers, can 
you point me to some shade-trees near your vil- 
lage, under which I can pitch my tent ? The day 
is hot, and I am weary with a long march." 

Without answering my question, scarcely seem- 
ing to notice that I had asked one, they looked 

up at me as I sat on my horse, and eagerly asked, 

46 



THE MAN IVITH THE IVONDERFUL BOOKS 47 

" Sir, are you the man with the wonderful books, 
and have you any more of them?" 

** What books do you mean? " said I. 

" Why, one of our townsmen was down at 
Santatope last week, Wednesday, at the fair ; and 
there was a foreign gentleman there with books 
telling about a new reHgion, and talking to the 
people. Our townsman did not see the foreigner 
and did not hear what he said, but he found some 
of his assistants selling the books in the market, 
and bought three of them and brought them 
home ; and there has been nothing done in this 
village since but read those books and talk about 
them. Are you the man that had them, and have 
you any more? " 

I had been at Santatope the preceding week at 
the fair, for I was out on the long exploring and 
evangelistic tour of more than twelve hundred 
miles in the Telugu country spoken of in the last 
chapter, and was now in regions where, as far as 
1 could learn, no missionary had up to that time 
(1863) ever been, and where the name of Jesus 
had never been spoken or heard. In many of the 
villages mine was the first white face they had 
ever seen. It was about a month before the in- 
cident " in the tiger jungle." 

On the preceding Wednesday we had made a 
long march, preaching in every town and village 
and hanilet we came to, from sunrise to eleven 



48 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

o'clock, later than we usually journeyed in that 
heat, as we had heard of this periodical market, 
at which buyers and sellers from a hundred towns 
would be present, and we wished to deliver our 
message in the hearing of people from as many 
different villages as possible, and sell them our 
Scriptures and tracts to carry back in their bun- 
dles and baskets, to read each to the people in 
his own village, that the '* seeds of the kingdom " 
might be scattered far and wide. 

Going, as soon as we had rested a little and had 
had our midday meal, into the fair, which there was 
held in the streets of the town and an adjoining 
grove, myself and two of my four native assistants 
had alternately preached to different audiences all 
the afternoon. As we entered a street we would 
mount an old cart or a pile of building materials, 
— anything that would raise us so that we could 
be seen and heard, — and sing one of the beautiful 
Telugu tunes to Christian words, and gather an 
audience, and then read to them from one of the 
Gospels, and preach to them of Jesus Christ and 
of the full salvation He had wrought out for all 
the world. Then, selling as many Scriptures, 
Gospels, and tracts as we could to them for a 
small price, we would go around into another 
street or to a lane in the grove, gather another 
company, preach again, and sell more books, until 
night had fallen upon us, Meantime the two 



THE MAN IVITH THE JVONDERFUL BOOKS 49 

Other native assistants were moving through the 
crowds of the market, selling books and tracts to 
all who would buy. We had disposed of many 
scores of books and tracts, and at last, when the 
fair was over, had returned to our camp too weary 
to sleep, but glad to have sent the ** message " 
into a hundred different and scattered towns. 

During the intervening week we had been 
slowly traveling on, stopping to preach in all the 
villages we passed, and as I rode along on my 
pony from village to village, often very weary, I 
had again and again thought of the scenes of that 
market-day, and wondered if the books carried 
into the far-off villages, without the voice of the 
living preacher to explain and enforce them, had 
been read, and if read understood, and if under- 
stood believed ; and I confess that my faith had 
not been as strong as I had wished. Now there 
was a chance to test the matter. 

Without replying to their question as to 
whether I was the man and whether I had any 
more books, I asked, " What were those books 
and what did they tell about? " 

"One of them was Lu^a Suvdrta [the ''Gospel 
of Luke"], and another was Nistdraratndkara 
[the "Jewel Mine of Salvation"], and the other 
was Gndnabodha ["Spiritual Teaching"]," they 
said. The last, " Spiritual Teaching," is a tract 
of the size of a Gospel, in which the insufficiency 



50 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

of Hinduism to save a soul, and the all-sufficiency 
of Christianity, are clearly set forth. The " Jewel 
Mine of Salvation," or the '' Gospel in Song," 
gives the whole plan of salvation in Telugu poetry, 
set to their own choicest native tunes. Both these 
were prepared by the Rev. Dr. H. M. Scudder, 
and published in the Telugu language by the 
American Tract Society. 

*' But what did those books tell about?" I 
asked. 

"Those books," said they, ''those wonderful 
books, say that there is but one God. We thought 
there were three hundred and thirty millions of 
gods, but those books say there is but one, and 
that He is a God of love, and that when He saw 
that we were sunken in sin, — ^ah, don't we know 
that we are! — and that we could not save our- 
selves nor get rid of our own sins, — have we not 
tried it and don't we know we cannot ? — that then 
He determined to undertake the task for us, and 
that — those books say it — He actually sent His 
own Son into the world as a divine Redeemer, 
and that He, Yesti Kristii [Jesus Christ], really 
came here and was born of a woman, like one of 
us, and that when He had taught the way of 
holiness by His words and by His example, and 
had done many marvelous deeds to prove that 
He really was divine. He actually gave up His 
own life 0,1^4 let Himself be killed ^s a sacrific§ 



THE MAN IVITH THE IVONDERFUL BOOKS 51 

for our sins; and that He was buried, and after 
three days He came to Ufe, — those books say so, — 
and when hundreds of people had seen Him alive 
He actually went up again into heaven, and that 
He is there now alive ; and that if we pray to Him 
He will hear us ; and that all that we have to do 
is to repent of our sins, and leave them off, and 
pray to Him and say, * O Yesu Kristu, do Thou 
free me from my sin, and make me Thy child, and 
when I die take me to be with Thee ; ' and that 
He will do all the rest — those books say so ; and 
that when we die we shall go to heaven and be 
with Him forever. Sir, are you the man that had 
those books, and are they true, and have you any 
more of them? " 

Who can conceive my joy as I sat there on my 
pony and heard those men tell what they had 
themselves already learned from ** those wonder- 
ful books " ? I forgot the toils and dangers of the 
journey; I forgot then about the mob that had 
surrounded us in a walled town only a fortnight 
before, and torn up the paving-stones to stone us 
with, because we had dared to come among them 
preaching another religion than theirs. For my 
thoughts reverted to the fair at Santatope, and 
the men from a hundred villages that had taken 
these books home with them, and I thanked my 
God that I was a missionary, that He had led me 
to come forth on this long and difficult journey, 



52 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

that He had led His people to print these books, 
and sent His Spirit with them when circulated, 
and that He had rebuked my lack of faith and 
showed me what the books and His enlightening 
Spirit could do. 

I turned to my impatient questioners and said, 
" Yes, brothers ; I am the man that had those 
books, and I have a whole cart-load of books like 
them. Don't you see the cart coming yonder? 
Please show me a shady place where we may pitch 
our tents, and you shall have as many books as 
you want ; for we shall stay here until to-morrow 
morning." 

Meantime several of the village watchmen had 
come up, seeing me talking with the head men of 
the vilkge, as these proved to be, and, not stop- 
ping to answer my question about shade, they 
turned to these watchmen and said : 

'' Here, you, Gopal, run to the village of Kist- 
nagar, and you, Malappa, run to Kotta Kota, and 
you, Sitadu, run to GoUapalle, and you here, and 
you there, and tell them all that the man with the 
wonderful books has come and that he has a cart- 
load more for sale ; and tell them to come in and 
bring their money, and they can get all they want 
and talk with him, too, about the books. Tell 
them to come quick, as he is going to be here 
only to-day, and they may never have another 
chance," 



THE MAN IVITH THE H^ONDERFUL BOOKS 53 

Ere I had reached the grove to which they took 
me I saw the men running through the mountain- 
passes to villages three, five, and seven miles 
away, to tell them to come in and get the won- 
derful books, and hear the wonderful news of the 
divine Redeemer, who could take away all our 
sins. 

Before we had taken our breakfast — for we had 
taken only a cup of coffee on starting at four 
o'clock in the morning — and were rested enough 
to begin to talk — for we had already preached in 
a number of different villages that morning — 
deputations from the different villages to which 
news had been sent began to arrive, ready to 
hear the news and buy the books. They kept us 
talking from two o'clock in the afternoon until ten 
o'clock at night. For by the time we had told 
the story of stories to one group, another group 
from another village, a little farther away, would 
have come ; and when we went to tell the story 
over again to them, the first group would not go 
away, for they said it was so good they wanted 
to hear it over again. 

The crowd around us kept increasing as we took 
turns in talking and resting, giving each time the 
story, but each time adding new incidents in the 
life of the God-man, and new phases of redeem- 
ing love, until, at ten o'clock we told them that 
we must lie down and rest now, as we were to 



54 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

start on early in the morning, and they then 
reluctantly withdrew. 

As we lay on our camp-cots we saw through- 
out the night, whenever we opened our eyes, 
strange lights flickering in the streets of the town 
near by, and at daylight, as we rose to go on our 
journey, they came out from the town with the 
different books in their hands, with the leaves 
turned down here and there ; for they said they 
had been reading the books all night, so as to see 
whether they understood them before we left, for 
they never expected to find any one else to ex- 
plain the books after we had gone. How eagerly 
they listened as I answered the questions they 
asked from the turned-down leaves! for they 
wanted to be sure they knew how to obtain this 
salvation. 

I do not give this as a sample of what usually 
occurs on our preaching tours. God does not 
often lift the veil ; He bids us walk by faith, not 
by sight. We often meet with opposition or, 
worse still, with indifTerence. We often wail with 
Isaiah, '* Lord, who hath believed our report, and 
to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed ? " But 
now and then God sees fit to raise one corner of 
the veil and let us see what may occur in scores 
of scattered villages, of which we shall for the first 
time learn when we meet those redeemed ones in 
the land where all is known. 



THE MAN IVITH THE IVONDERFUL BOOKS 55 

Meantime this one incident in my own experi- 
ence many years ago is my answer to those who 
ask, " What is the use of scattering books and 
tracts in heathen lands without the living mission- 
ary to explain them ? " God has said, " My Word 
shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accom- 
plish that which I please." And He fulfils His 
promise. 



Ill 



ENCOUNTER WITH A TEN-FOOT SERPENT, 
AND ITS RESULTS 

The week following the incident of " the man 
with the wonderful books," described in the last 
chapter, occurred an incident which at first threat- 
ened to be damaging, but which proved helpful. 

We were now in the great teak-wood forest, 
with trees towering one hundred and fifty feet 
above the woodman's path, up which we were 
wending our way to the great Godavery River, 
and along which path or rough cart-track were 
clearings every few miles, and villages and cul- 
tivation. We had that morning taken a long 
march, preaching and disposing of Gospels and 
tracts in every village and hamlet that we passed. 
At ten o'clock, learning from our guide that about 
a mile ahead was a large village or town, I rode 
on in advance to find a place in which to pitch 
our tent. 

As I came near I saw the elders of the city 

56 



; 



ENCOUNTER JVITH A TEN-FOOT SERPENT 57 

coming out of the city gates — for it was an old 
walled town — to meet me. Passing the salutations 
of the day, I asked them where there was a shady 
place where I could pitch my tent for the day and 
night. 

'* You need not pitch your tent," they replied ; 
" here is a new thatched building just erected for 
a shelter for our cattle. That will be fully as 
comfortable as your tent and will save the trouble 
of pitching; please accept the use of that." 

Close by us, just outside the gates of the town, 
was this new building, with roof and walls made 
of palm-leaves, and with an open doorway, but 
no door. The floor was the virgin sod, still 
green, for it had not been used. 

I accepted their hospitality, and as soon as my 
cart came up I took out my camp-cot, and put it 
in the middle of the hut, and threw myself down 
to rest while my servant was preparing my break- 
fast. My native assistants had not yet come up, 
as they had found another httle hamlet after I 
left them, and had stopped to preach in that. 

I was lying on my back on my cot, reading my 
Greek Testament, which had been my daily com- 
panion from a boy. I was holding it up over me, 
reading a Httle, and shutting my eyes and think- 
ing a little. This continued for near half an hour. 
At length the passage I was reading was finished, 
and I let the arm that was holding the book fall. 



K 



58 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

Then, and not until then, did I become aware 
that a huge serpent was coiled around one of the 
bamboo rafters, with some four feet of his body 
hanging down directly over my head, with his 
eyes flashing and his tongue darting out, just 
above where my book had been and had concealed 
him. He had evidently been asleep in the roof; 
the putting in of my cot had awakened him. 
While I was reading he had let down one third 
of his body or more, and was looking to see what 
this leprous-looking white man was about, for he 
had probably never seen a white man before. 

His darting tongue was almost within arm's- 
length of my face when I caught sight of him. I 
remembered that during my course at the medical 
college, in the skylight dissecting-room of the old 
College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, 
I once looked attentively over the muscles of the 
human frame, and wondered whether a person 
lying down could jump horizontally without first 
erecting himself. I found it could be done with 
proper incentives, for off that cot I came at one 
bound to my feet without first raising my head, 
for that serpent was too near it. 

Running to the door, I seized an iron spit some 
five or six feet long, with a sharp point, used for 
roasting purposes in the jungle, and which was in 
the cart. Coming back and using that as a spear, 
I was successful at the first thrust in piercing the 



ENCOUNTER IVITH A TEN-FOOT SERPENT 59 

body of the serpent where it was coiled around 

the rafter. 

But then I found myself in another difficulty. 
I caught hold of the spear to keep it from falling 
out and releasing the serpent, but the serpent 
would draw back, and with a tremendous hiss 
strike at my hand that held the spear, and come 
suspiciously near hitting it with his tremendous 
extended fangs. If I should let go, the spit would 
fall out and the serpent would get away, and he 
and I could not sleep in that hut together that 
night, especially after he had been wounded by 
me. 'if I held on, his body might slide down the 
spit until he could reach my hand, which might 
be fatal to me instead of to him. 

However, in answer to my lusty calls, my ser- 
vant soon appeared with a bamboo club. Hold- 
ing the spit with my left hand and taking the club 
in my right, I administered to the serpent a head- 
ache, from which he died. As I took him down 
and held him up by the middle, on the spit, to the 
level of my shoulder, both head and tail touched 
the floor, showing that he was about ten feet long. 
Just as I was holding him in this position one 
of the village watchmen passed the door of the 
hut going into the village, and saw what I had 
done. It occurred to me at once that now I 
should find myself in a " bad box," for the people 
revere serpents as demigods. They dare not kill 



60 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

them or harm them, and will always beg for the 
life of a serpent if they see any one else killing 
one. They think that if you harm one of these 
deadly serpents it or its kin will wage war on you 
and your kin and descendants until your kin are 
exterminated. I, a missionary, had come there 
to preach ; how would they hear me when I had 
killed one of their gods? 

Knowing that the news had gone into the town 
to the elders, I began to prepare my line of de- 
fense, for I thought that they would soon come 
out to call me to account. I remembered a verse 
of one of their Telugu poets commending the kill- 
ing of venomous reptiles, and having a copy of 
that poet with me, I opened my book-box and 
took it out, but had not found the verse when I 
saw the chief men of the place coming out toward 
the hut. 

To my astonishment, they had native brass 
trays in their hands, with sweetmeats, cocoanuts, 
limes, and burning incense-sticks on them ; and 
as they came to the door of the hut they prostrated 
themselves before me, and then presented these 
offerings ; for they said I had rid them of their 
most dangerous enemy, that that serpent had been 
the bane of that village for several years. It had 
bitten and killed some of their kine and, I think, 
also a child. They had made every effort to drive 
it away from the village by burning straw closer 



ENCOUNTER IVITH A TEN-FOOT SERPENT 61 

and closer to it to make it go farther and farther 
away, but it would always return. They had tried 
to coax it away by putting little cups, each hold- 
ing half a teaspoonful of milk, every two yards 
or so out into the jungle; but as soon as it had 
drunk all the milk it wanted it would turn round 
and crawl back into the village and into some 
house, and then the people of that house would 
have to vacate until it chose to leave. It had 
become the terror of the village. 

But now I, a stranger and foreigner, had killed 
it without their knowledge or consent. That was 
their safety ; for if they had seen me doing it they 
would have begged for its life, lest they be taken 
as accomplices. Now it was dead, and they were 
guiltless, and it could harm them and theirs no 
more. Would I please accept these sweets? 
They had sent to the flock in the fields to have a 
fat sheep brought me as an offering, and would I 
please accept the sheep? Now whatever I had 
to say they would listen to me gladly, for was not 
I their deliverer? The sheep was brought; my- 
self, associates, and attendants made a sumptuous 
dinner from it. The serpent was not a cobra, — 
cobras never grow so large, — but it was said to 
be equally venomous. 

When the heat of the day was over we all went 
into the town to preach. At the gate was the 
village crier with his tom-tom, or small drum ; and 



62 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

as soon as we appeared he went through all the 
streets beating the tom-tom and crying, *' Come, 
all ye people ; come and hear what the serpent- 
destroyer has to say to us." A royal audience 
we had, while we spoke to them of the *' old ser- 
pent " and his deeds, and Christ, who bruised the 
serpent's head. The killing of the serpent, instead 
of proving a bar, had opened a door of access to 
the gospel. 



IV 



THE GOSPEL RIVER IN INDIA: HOW IT 
FLOWS 

We have in India a magnificent river, the 
sacred Godavery, which, rising on the western 
coast, only a few miles from the Sea of Arabia, 
among the hills to the north of Bombay, flows 
diagonally across the entire country to the south- 
east, and discharges its waters into the Bay of 
Bengal, north of Madras. 

The monsoon, or rainy season, on the western 
coast is different from that on the eastern, so that 
the river comes freighted with its mighty life-giv- 
ing current during our dry season, flowing with 
swollen stream through a region parched and 
verdureless. Some thirty years ago the govern- 
ment of India, incited thereto by an enthusias- 
tic and dauntless English engineer who had on 
mihtary duty traversed the country, constructed 
an annicut, or dam, over two miles in length, 
costing four millions of dollars, across this mighty 
river, thirty miles from the sea, raising the level 



64 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

of its current some thirty feet, and, digging chan- 
nels great and small, poured out its vivifying 
waters over a million acres of what had been an 
arid plain. 

Behold the change. What had for centuries 
been worthless sand-plains were converted into 
fruitful rice-fields; the squaHd inhabitants have 
become thrifty farmers; the famine-stricken re- 
gion is a garden of plenty. What has wrought 
this marvel in these now harvest-laden counties? 
It is but the flowing in of the waters of that his- 
toric river. 

British skill did not create the waters of the 
Godavery, For centuries it had flowed as now. 
Bubbling up from springs among the Marathi 
Hills, it runs a tiny brook; other springs from 
hillside and dale feed it as it speeds along ; 
affluents from Berar, Nagpore, Hyderabad, Bus- 
tar, increase its volume ; it becomes a river. I 
have followed its banks or traveled on its bosom 
for hundreds of miles. It is here a rapid torrent ; 
it is there a placid stream ; it is yonder a leaping 
cataract ; here it broadens into a lake ; there it 
foams between the perpendicular walls of a moun- 
tain gorge, as it bursts through the Eastern Ghats, 
whence in a broad and even stream it flows 
through sixty miles of rolling country and of plain 
until it buries itself in the sea. It is ever flowing, 
pure, refreshing, life-giving. 




H 

< 
>■ 

< 

CQ 



H 
O 

z 



THE GOSPEL RIVER IN INDIA 65 

On its banks successive generations had been 
living for ages and had seen its everlasting flood ; 
successive generations had eked out a squalid ex- 
istence on the sand-plains a hundred miles south- 
ward; but neither had they comprehended its 
possibilities for good nor attempted to utilize its 
wasted waters. It was left for a Christian nation, 
educated by the Bible, brought by the Bible and 
the Bible's Author to their present proud position 
among the nations of the earth — it was left for 
such a nation to discover the possibilities, to ad- 
vance the capital, to furnish the skill, to turn the 
watercourses upon the desert, and, while reaping 
their portion of the gladsome harvest, to confer 
life, as it were, upon the inhabitants of the 
droughty plains. 

That river is a type, those fruitful gardens an 
illustration. God's Word, the divine revelation 
of Himself, His works, His purposes to sinful 
man, is that river. Its fountains were from the 
Eden showers of grace on undeserving man. The 
volume of the river was increased by the succes- J 

sive revelations to Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, 
Joseph, Moses, David, and the prophets. A 
stream flowing on, it passed the narrow barriers 
of the Jewish walls, and with the coming of Jesus 
of Nazareth, His life. His sacrificial death, it 
widened out into the blessed " river of salvation," 
broad, placid, refreshing, life-giving, to all who 



66 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

come under its influence. The missionary, the 
Bible, the tract societies, are striving to make this 
stream flow over the arid moral wastes of sin- 
scorched India and cause it to exchange its spir- 
itual desolation for the fruitful beauty of a garden 
of the Lord. 

When the Godavery annicut was completed, 
and the main channel that should take the stream 
down through the counties was well under way, 
the government sent out messengers to all hold- 
ers of land to tell them what the water would do 
for them, what harvests it would produce, and 
that, at a fixed price, any who wished it could 
have side-channels dug to their own land and 
avail themselves of the water. 

So are the agents of the missionary, the Bible, 
and the tract societies working in India, sent out 
with the message, oral and printed, telling the peo- 
ple of the '' river of the water of life " ; sent out to 
cry aloud in every market-place, '* Ho, every one 
that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that 
hath no money ; come ye, buy, and eat ; yea, 
come, buy wine and milk without money and 
without price." 

These societies do not create the stream. Like 
the Godavery, it has been flowing for centuries in 
rich abundance; but it had not been turned in 
upon India, and India remained a moral sand- 
plain, verdureless and fruitless. It was left to 



THE GOSPEL RIVER IN INDIA 67 

foreign Christian nations, to us of this age, aye, in 
a measure to us of this nation, to introduce those 
streams to India's teeming miUions. It is true 
that on England, as the conquering nation, fell the 
heaviest responsibility ; and hundreds of her sons 
and daughters, and thousands of pounds of her 
wealth, consecrated yearly to the work, show that 
she is not altogether unmindful of her sacred 
duty, of her glorious opportunity. But she alone 
is not equal to the task of converting all India into 
a garden of the Lord in this generation. 

British gold and British skill could dam the 
river, though two miles broad and with forty feet 
deep of loose sand lying underneath the flowing 
water; they could thus change a dozen sterile 
counties into a fruitful garden. But when Chris- 
tian England looked upon the moral waste cov- 
ering all India with her two hundred and 
eighty-seven millions of Christless inhabitants, 
it is no wonder that she stood back aghast and 
eagerly summoned to her aid her wiUing allies of 
every Christian nation. And they have come. 
Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Canada, and 
the United States, as well as England, Scotland, 
Ireland, and Wales, each has her corps of labor- 
ers on the field engaged in the hopeless and yet 
hopeful work. 

It is a matter of joy that the myriad Christians 
of America of different churches, each through 



68 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

its own missionary board and all through the 
Bible and tract societies, have their share in this 
work. Let me point out here some of the ways 
in which we are endeavoring to carry out this 
work, especially through the aid of printed truth, 
for the other forms of labor are better known. 

' The Bible must be translated into the many 
languages of India, and printed and scattered all 
through the country ; for that is the great channel 
for conveying the streams of salvation to the 
people. In this work both of translation and of 
circulation our own American Bible Society has 
borne a most admirable part. The Bible has 
already been translated into eighteen of the chief 
languages of India, and the New Testament or 
parts thereof into twenty of the minor languages, 
and is being circulated by the hundred thousand 
yearly. 

The Bible is the main channel ; we must have 
side-channels and distributing rivulets to bring it 
within the knowledge and reach of all. Dropping 
now the figure, let me speak of each of the agen- 
cies, aside from the Bible, that we use for bringing 
the news of salvation in printed form before the 
people of every age and class and station. 

Wishing to catch the attention of the young 
while their minds are easily impressed, we com- 
mence with the school-book. I have lying before 
me a first book or primer in the Telugu language. 



THE GOSPEL Rl^BR IN INDIA 60 

It begins with the alphabet of five hundred and 
thirty-nine characters, and goes on to syllables 
and easy sentences. Among the easy sentences 
are these: "There is but one God." In that 
sentence the foundation of the Hindu system is 
undermined. " God is a Spirit ; He has no body, 
no visible form." Idolatry receives a stab; for 
how can an image represent Him that is without 
visible form ? *' God is holy ; in Him there is no 
sin." If this is received by the young minds as 
true, the legends of their impure gods are swept 
away. ** God is love." This is a new conception 
to the Hindu mind. They fear, they dread, their 
gods ; they make offerings to them to avert their 
wrath ; but they have no thought of God as a lov- 
ing Father. '' God so loved us that He sent His 
own Son to save us." Here the young Hindu 
receives his first idea of a loving God reaching 
down to save sinful man. 

Thus, mingled in with other matter, come these 
germs of saving truth ; and on the back cover is 
printed in large type the Lord's Prayer, that all 
may learn it ; and many not yet Christians love 
to use it. These first books are sold at from one 
to two cents each, and so much better are they 
prepared and printed than the native first books, 
and so much cheaper, that hundreds of heathen 
schoolmasters introduce them into their schools in 
spite of their Christian teaching. On one occasion 



10 Ih! THE TlG^k JUNGLE 

I sold thirty-five copies to a single heathen school- 
master to supply his younger pupils. Eighty 
thousand copies of this one little book, in the 
Telugu language alone, have already been sold, 
and probably twice that number in all the lan- 
guages of India together. These primers are 
followed by Christian first readers and second 
readers and other school-books, all pervaded with 
Christian truth — all sold for cost, or less, to non- 
Christians who will buy. 

Story-books, too, by the hundred are issued ; 
little stories that will take among boys and girls, 
that will be read for the story, but each one hav- 
ing some Christian truth or moral precept incul- 
cated in it, some with pictures and some without. 
The smallest are four inches long and two and a 
half broad, with about sixteen or twenty pages, 
and with colored paper covers. They are sold for 
one pie each. The pie is their smallest coin and 
is worth a quarter of a cent, so that every boy and 
girl can purchase a little truth-bearing story- 
book. Of these hundreds of thousands are sold 
every year among heathen children, and their in- 
fluence for good is seen in after years in many a 
life. 



V 



THE GOSPEL RIVER IN INDIA: THE 
"GOSPEL IN song" 

I COME now to speak of the use of the " Gos- 
pel in Song." The Hindus, especially theTelugu 
people, among whom I have worked so many- 
years, are very fond of poetry and of music. 
All their ancient literature is in poetic form ; their 
grammar and geography, their arithmetic and 
astronomy, their works on medicine and science 
and law that have come down from former ages, 
are in poetry, which they always intone or chant 
when they read it. Besides this they have sweet 
and melodious tunes that have come down from 
great antiquity, and of these they are very fond. 
Of these old tunes we make use as a vehicle for 
the gospel. They have, indeed, been sung to the 
praises of their false gods, often to libidinous 
words that no respectable man or woman would 
listen to in public without a blush; but in the 

desperate conflict that is going on between the 

71 



72 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

powers of darkness and the powers of light in 
India, wishing to seize the devil's choicest weapons 
to thrust him with, we take these old native tunes 
and convert them by marrying them to Christian 
words, and again send them coursing through the 
country ; and many, glad to be able to sing the 
old tunes to words that do not make them blush 
and which at least teach a correct morality, will 
join in singing the new words for the sake of the 
old tunes. 

I have before me the Nistdrarat7idkara, or 
" Gospel in Song," issued many years ago in the 
Telugu language. In it the whole plan of salva- 
tion is clearly set forth in songs set to their most 
loved native tunes ; and many a Hindu who has 
received this has begun by trying to see how the 
new words fitted to the old tune, and has sung 
and sung until he has sung away his prejudices, 
and has sung the knowledge and the love of God 
and of His Son, Jesus Christ, into his heart, and 
has gone on singing of his Jesus, his Saviour, and 
will keep up his singing until, thus brought in, he 
joins in singing the song of Moses and the Lamb. 

Who originated this book we do not know ; it 
was in use in several of the languages of India 
before it was translated into Telugu ; but we do 
know that in each of the eighteen different lan- 
guages in which it is issued it has been the means 
of leading many souls out of the thraldom of 



THE ''GOSPEL IN SONG" 73 

Hindu superstition into the liberty of Jesus Christ. 
There are many other poetical tracts, large and 
small, issued with the same intent, which are will- 
ingly received and widely sung by those who thus 
gain their first knowledge of Jesus and His sal- 
vation. 

The.Telugus also readily catch up and become 
very fond of our livelier American tunes, espe- 
cially those with a chorus or refrain ; and we make 
use of them, for the novelty of the foreign music 
sometimes rivets their attention. Many years ago 
I translated into Telugu the children's hymn: 

" Jesus loves me; this I know, 
For the Bible tells me so," 

and taught it to the children of our Telugu day- 
school. It was scarcely a week before, as I was 
going through the narrow streets of the native 
town, horseback, I heard singing that sounded 
natural down a side street. I stopped to listen, 
cautiously drawing up to the corner, where I could 
unobserved look down the street and see and hear ; 
and there was a little heathen boy, with heathen 
men and women standing around him, singing 
away at the top of his voice: 

" Jesus loves me; this I know, 
For the Bible tells me so. ... 
Yes, Jesus loves me ; 
The Bible tells me so." 



U IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

And as he completed the verse the question 
arose, " Sonny, where did you learn that song? " 

'* Over at the mission school," was the answer. 

" Who is that Jesus, and what is the Bible? " 

" Oh, the Bible is the book sent from God, they 
say, to teach us how to get to heaven, and Jesus 
is the name of the divine Redeemer, that came 
into the world to save us from our sins; that is 
what the missionaries say." 

" Well, the song is a nice one, anyhow. Come, 
sing us some more." 

And so the Httle boy went on, a heathen him- 
self, and singing to the heathen about Jesus and 
His love. 

** That is preaching the gospel by proxy," I said 
to myself, as I turned my pony and rode away, 
well satisfied to leave my little proxy to tell to his 
interested audience all he himself knew, and sing 
to them over and over that sweet song of salvation. 

The tune of "Hold the Fort" is one that 
catches the ear and rings in the memory of men 
of every clime. Go where you will in foreign 
lands, it is hummed and whistled by men and 
played by bands who do not even know the 
words. This seemed a fitting winged messenger 
to carry the gospel message to our song-loving 
Telugus, and I prepared such a message in their 
language adapted to, the tune and sent it forth on 
its journey. 



tHE ''GOSPEL IN SONG'^ ^6 

The first time we used it among the heathen 
we had gone into the native town to hold a gos- 
pel preaching service. We sang this " gospel 
message " as a rally ing-cry, and as we sang the 
chorus again and again, at the close of each verse 
one and another of the audience were heard, at 
first faintly and tentatively, to join in the chorus, 
which in the Telugu runs thus : 

" Yesu Kristu ndku ganu 
Pranam icchenu ; 
Tana yodda nannu pilchen. 
Kristu vacchedan." 

Rendered into English, the message would run : 

" Come, ye people! hear the message 
By the Saviour given : 
God the Father loves His children, 
Wishes them forgiven. 

Chorus : 

" Jesus Christ, my loving Saviour, 
Shed His blood for me ; 
Now He bids me come unto Him; 
Christ, I'll come to Thee. 

" God so loved the world of sinners, 
Ruined by the fall, 
That He sought a way to save them 
That might save them all. 

Jesus Christ, etc. 

" For us all, to die and suffer, 
His own Son He gave. 



76 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

That whoe'er believeth on Him 
Might not die, but live. 

Jesus Christ, etc. 

" ' Come, ye weary, heavy laden,' 
Is my Lord's behest, 
* All your sins and sorrows leaving, 
Come to Me, and rest.' 

Jesus Christ, etc." 

After we had closed the meeting, singing the 
song again in closing, and were going home, I 
heard in the stillness of the night air one of our 
heathen audience singing on his way to his house 
the refrain, ** Kristu vacchedan " (" Christ, I'll 
come to Thee "), and my prayer went up that 
that message and that refrain, so readily caught 
up, might go ringing through the country and 
lead many a sin-burdened Hindu to sing from his 
heart, " Christ, I'll come to Thee." 

We have a Christian song married to one of the 
most beautiful of the ancient native melodies, that 
is known all through the country. Its theme is 
the insufficiency of human schemes and human 
help to reHeve the burdened soul of sin, and the 
sufficiency and the love of Christ. Myself and 
native assistants have sung this song in hundreds, 
yes, in thousands, of different native towns all up 
through the Telugu country. It is one of those 
tunes that linger on the ear and prompt a repeti- 
tion. The Telugu hymn runs thus, for the refrain 
always comes first in Telugu music : 



THE "GOSPEL IN SONG" 77 



Refrain : 
*' Ni charanamul^ nammiti, nammiti; 
Ni padamul^ battiti, battiti. 

I 
" Dikkika Niv^ tsakkaga rav6? 

Mikkili mrokkudu, mrokkudu, mrokkudu. 

II 

" Aihika sukhamu narisiti nitya, 
Mahaha drohini, drohini, drohini." 

Rendered into the same meter in English, it is as 
follows: 

Refrain : 
" Thy refuge, safe and free, would I seek, blessed Jesus ; 
Thy mercy-giving feet would I clasp, blessed Jesus. 

I 

" My only help art Thou ; wilt Thou not hear me? 
F®r on Thee, bowing low at Thy feet, do I call. 
Thy refuge, etc. 

II 

" The fleeting joys of earth have not I tasted? 
Traitor I wandered far, far away, far from Thee. 
Thy refuge, etc. 

Ill 

*' My own works, all so vile, filled with pollution, 
I abhor, I renounce. Saviour, turn me not away. 
Thy refuge, etc. 

IV 

•' My hard and sinful will, my baser passions, 

Pluck them out, drive them hence ; free me, Lord, deliver me. 
Thy refuge, etc. 



78 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

V 

" My nature so corrupt, canst Thou not change it? 

Ease my pain, O my God ! Save me. Lord, save me now. 
Thy refuge, etc." 

I well remember one evening in 1863, as we 
were out on a long preaching tour of several 
months up through a native kingdom, when we 
were far beyond where any missionary had ever 
been, and where the name of Jesus had never yet 
been heard, we went into the compactly built 
town near which, in a shady grove, our tent was 
pitched, to preach of Jesus and His salvation. 
The people of the town had seen us pitch our 
tent as we had finished our morning journey, and 
wondered what we had come for. As the sun 
was going down we went into the streets of the 
town, and finding an open market-place, we took 
our stand and sang that song with its sweet re- 
frain, singing the refrain first, as is always done 
in native music. An audience soon came to- 
gether to hear the music, and listened with won- 
der to their old familiar tune and its new words, 
with their strange message of a Saviour from sin. 
And while we preached of Him who alone was 
able to change our corrupt nature, renew our sin- 
ful will, and drive out our baser passions, if we 
would only seek His safe and free refuge and with 
earnest desire clasp His mercy-giving feet, they 
listened as though it was sweeter news than any 



THE ''GOSPEL IN SONG" 79 

they had ever heard before. We sang the song 
again before we left, and then they purchased many 
copies of Gospels and tracts and of the " Gospel 
in Song," and we returned to our tents under the 
trees, to stay until sunrise, when we would pass 
on to other villages. We had had our supper and 
our evening worship, and had retired, and all was 
still, when through the trees we heard the people 
in the village singing over the refrain, '* Ni char- 
anamule nammiti, nammiti," and then they took 
up the words of the song, " My only help art 
Thou ; wilt Thou not hear me? " And on in the 
night, mingled with my sleep, I was conscious of 
hearing songs of redeeming love, sung by those 
Hindus, who had until that day never heard of the 
Bible, never heard the name of that Jesus of whose 
love they were now singing. 

The " Gospel in Song " — who can tell its 
power? In giving to the superstition-bound 
Hindus this facility for and love of music, God 
has put in our hands one of our keenest weapons. 
We do well if we use it to its utmost, as we try to 
do ; for I have only hinted at a few of the many 
ways in which we use it to bring the matchless 
love of Christ before the sons and daughters of 
India. 



VI 



THE GOSPEL RIVER IN INDIA: THE 
FLEET-FOOTED TRACT 

Among the agencies for diffusing the waters of 
this river of Hfe, the next is the all- pervasive tract, 
that goes wherever the alphabet is known. This 
is an agency of which we make extensive use. 
Tracts are issued in every variety of form, on 
every phase of Christian truth, in all the lan- 
guages, at all prices and no price, and circulated 
in every imaginable way. 

The leaflet, or single-page tract, Is scattered 
broadcast, printed on a little slip of fancy-colored 
paper to attract the eye, or on a larger leaf when 
the subject requires more space, sometimes in 
prose, sometimes in poetry, some in parable, some 
in proverb, some In questions, some In brief Bible 
story, all designed to excite Interest and provoke 
further inquiry, and all sent, like the rain, gratui- 
tously through the towns, the villages, the markets, 
the fairs. 

But are they not misused ? Yes, they are very 

80 



THE FLEET-FOOTED TRACT 81 

C'ften. Does every clover-seed sprout that is sown 
upon the field ? The leaflet has been used by the 
bazaar man to wrap up snuff for his customer at 
the fair; and when the customer in his distant 
home has unwrapped his snuff, he has read the 
wrapper, neatly printed in his own language, and 
reading it and pondering it, he has been led to 
seek for fur her light; and through that mer- 
chant's misuse of that leaflet his customer has 
been brought to Jesus. 

The tickets which we give the patients at our 
mission hospitals and dispensaries are really little 
leaflet tracts. I have lying before me one in the 
Telugu language, of which I have myself printed 
thirty thousand and given them to patients that 
have come for treatment. It is the size of a gen- 
tleman's visiting-card and has two leaves; it is 
printed on thick, strong paper that will not wear 
out. On the front page with ornamental border 
is printed ^' Madanapalle Free Hospital," with 
blanks for number, date, and patient's name. By 
that number he is registered, and his disease, 
symptoms, and treatment are entered on the book. 
This ticket is given to the out-patients. Each 
time one comes for further treatment or for more 
medicine the patient must show this ticket. They 
keep them very carefully, often for years, lest 
perchance they want to come again and need this 
as an introduction. As the patient is registered 



82 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

and receives his number, he seats himself to await 
his turn for treatment, and opens his folded ticket 
to see what directions it contains inside. As this 
may be the only glimmering of truth that some 
will have in the villages from which some of these 
patients come, a hundred miles away, I prepared 
the most concise statement of Christian truth I 
could and printed it there. He reads : 

** There is but one true God. He created, con- 
trols, and preserves all things that exist; He is 
sinless, but we are filled with sin ; He, to take 
away our sin, sent His own Son, Jesus Christ, into 
this world as a divine Redeemer. That divine 
Redeemer, Jesus Christ, gave His life as a pro- 
pitiatory sacrifice, and now whoever believes on 
Him and prays to Him will receive remission of 
sins and eternal life. This is what the true Veda, 
the Holy Bible, teaches us." 

He turns over to the last page and finds a 
quotation from one of their favorite Telugu poets, 
who wrote seven centuries ago ; for we like, as 
did Paul, to clench a truth by saying, " One of 
your own poets has said." He reads in Telugu : 

*- The soul defiled with sin, what real worship pays it? 
The pot unclean, the cookery, who eats it? 
The heart impure, though it essays devotion, 
Can Deity receive it? Nay, nay. Be pure, O man." 

And we add below this : '' To give us this very 
purity of heart, spoken of by your poet, our divine 



THE FLEET-FOOTED TRACT 83 

Redeemer, Jesus Christ, came into this worid. 
Believe in Him." 

Fifty miles and more from Madanapalle, as I 
have been traveling, a man has seen me, run into 
his house, and quickly come out again, holding 
out one of these tickets, in some instances several 
years old, as shown by the date, and claimed 
acquaintance as a former patient of mine ; and 
that ticket has served as an excellent introduction 
to my preaching there and then to all the people 
of his villag \ 

These tickets are read. I met upon the high- 
way one day, as I was traveling twenty miles from 
home, a Brahman, who stopped me and asked if 
I were not the missionary doctor from Madana- 
palle. He said that one of my patients had taken 
home his ticket to his village eighty miles away, 
and that he had seen it and read it, and read it 
again, and now he had come in on foot all that 
way to ask me more about that " true Veda " and 
the Jesus Christ set forth in that little ticket. 
Those tickets pay. 

Next to the gratuitous leaflets we have small 
tracts printed in book form with colored paper 
cover, and sold for one pie, or a quarter of a 
cent, or two pies or three pies each. We sell 
as many as we can instead of giving them 
away ; for if a Hindu pays cash for a thing he 
thinks more of it, keeps it more carefully, and 



84 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

perhaps will lend it more widely than if he gets 
it for nothing. 

Then there is the series of Bible narratives with 
full-page pictures printed in colors. I chance to 
have lying before me " The History of Joseph " 
in that form. There are seven full-page illustra- 
tions and nine pages of narrative. These are sold 
for one anna, or three cents, each, and are very 
attractive to the Hindus, who like bright colors; 
and the Oriental pictures, with the characters in 
a garb that seems so strange to us, have a home- 
like look to the Hindus, and make them feel, as 
they look at these Bible characters, that the Bible 
is not so very foreign a book, after all ; and so 
these colored picture-tracts help to popularize the 
truth and make the Hindu more ready to read not 
only the narratives, but also the teachings, of the 
Christian's Bible. Brief pictorial lives of Christ 
are thus published, and seeing that He was not a 
white Englishman in stiff English costume, but 
appeared and was arrayed much like themselves, 
they feel more drawn toward Him, or less repelled. 

We have also a series of nicely printed wall 
pictures of Bible characters, scenes, and incidents. 
They are on stiff paper, about sixteen by twenty- 
two inches in size. The pictures are printed in 
colors in England, the picture covering one half 
the page, and the lower half left blank ; and so 
they are sent out to Madras, where the Christian 



THE FLEET-FOOTED TRACT 85 

Knowledge Society prints on each the story or 
the explanation in Telugu, Tamil, Kanarese, or 
Hindustani, and mission presses in other parts of 
India print the same in the languages of their 
districts. These, thus printed, are sold at six 
cents each. 

Some years ago I obtained a number of sets of 
these pictures with the story or the explanation in 
the different languages read at Madanapalle, and 
hung them around the walls of our free reading- 
room, with an intimation that copies of any of 
them could be had for two annas, or six cents, 
each. 

It was not long before the colporteur in charge 
came, asking me to order another lot, as these had 
all been sold ; and most of the purchasers had been 
well-to-do non-Christians, who gladly bought 
them, in spite of their Bible stories, to enliven the 
walls of their own houses. And many a time, as 
I went to see some patient in a high-caste Hin- 
du's home, I found some of these pictures on the 
walls, with the Bible story on them, where all the 
family could read. The infant Jesus at Bethle- 
hem, the boy Jesus in the temple, talking with the 
gray-bearded priests, the man Jesus raising the 
widow's son, the Christ Jesus talking with the 
woman at the well, all in their richly colored 
Oriental costume, appealed to their sympathies, 
attracted their attention, familiarized them with 



86 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

scriptural imagery, and made them the more 
ready to read the fuller accounts of the same in- 
cidents in the " true Veda." 

Larger tracts of fifty or more pages are yet sold 
for one cent each. We always sell at or under 
cost, for our object is to circulate as broadly as 
possible. We only obtain price enough to secure 
good usage for the tract. And are these tracts 
read ? Some are not ; some are. 

Near forty years ago such a tract, called 
'' Spiritual Teaching," written by Dr. H. M. 
Scudder, found its way into a Telugu village 
seventy-five miles northwest of my present station 
in India. It fell into the hands of one of the head 
men of the village. He was a high-caste man of 
noted probity of character. He read it, and then 
re-read it with more attention. It was the first 
he had heard of any other religion than Hinduism. 
He had always longed for some help to get rid of 
his sin ; this opened to him the way to get such 
help. He read the tract to his wife and Httle boys, 
and told them it was so good it must be true. 
He read it to his neighbors, and some of them 
also accepted its teachings. At last he heard of 
a missionary who taught similar doctrines some 
seventy miles away ; he went on foot across the 
then roadless country, through the hills, to the 
town where the missionary was said to live. He 
found him, told him what he had learned from the 



THE FLEET-FOOTED TRACT 87 

little book, and asked if it were true and if he knew 
about the God that had given His own Son to save 
us from our sins. He went back and brought his 
family with him to hear more of this wonderful 
news. They were all baptized by the missionary, 
and he placed his children in the mission school, 
there to be educated, that they might help make 
known these glad tidings to his countrymen. In 
1 86 1 I buried the old patriarch in a Christian's 
grave. He was a man of strong faith and much 
prayer; he spent his last breath in sending up 
shouts of praise to his Saviour for sending this 
tract out to his village and through it saving him 
from his sins. 

Two of his sons have since been laboring under 
my direction as preachers of the same gospel. 
The elder was for a long time native preacher of 
the church at Palmaner. In 1884 I stood by his 
bed and saw him pass through the pearly gates. 
So much respected and beloved was he by all that 
at his funeral, both at his house and at the grave, 
there was, besides the Christian congregation, a 
large concourse of heathen and Mohammedans 
present, and many a tear dropped into his grave 
with the flower or the handful of earth that each 
one, Hindu as well as Christian, reverently cast 
in. After the funeral a prominent Hindu said to 
me, " Sir, he was a man who never ceased to tell 
others of his Saviour. When he was sick in your 



88 ' IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

hospital one of my family was also a patient in the 
same ward, and I was there a great deal. Every 
day, and often during the day, he would gather 
groups of the patients and their friends around 
him, and read to them from his Bible, and talk to 
them of the love of Jesus Christ and of His will- 
ingness to take away the sins of all who would 
come to Him and ask. Yes, sir, he was a good 
man, and we Hindus too mourn over his loss." 

This was accomplished by that one tract that 
found its way all alone into that distant Hindu 
village. Thousands of Hindu souls in glory will 
point back to the leaflet or the tract that, wafted 
or borne to their distant homes, first told them of 
and bade them seek '' the river of the water of 
life." 

These are some of the channels through which 
the '* gospel river in India " is flowing and being 
distributed, in tiny rivulets, to thousands of sepa- 
rate and scattered villages ; aye, and in many an 
unpromising locahty are already found germinat- 
ing seeds and growing fruits, that give promise 
of developing into a garden of the Lord. 



VII 



ESTABLISHING A NEW STATION: VARIETIES 
IN MISSION WORK 

I AM often asked, *' How do you proceed in 
establishing missionary work in a new region? 
How do you get hold of the people? How 
do you first introduce Christianity to them? 
There are no halls to be hired for preaching 
in, no daily papers in the up-country regions in 
which to advertise the proclamation of a new 
doctrine at a given place and hour. The whole 
mass of the people is either indifferent or hostile 
to you. How, then, do you gain your first foot- 
hold and start the missionary machinery working 
in new regions ? And what are the different kinds 
of missionary activities ? " 

I am in a position to answer these questions, for 
in 1863 I was chosen to go on into new regions 
and open out work among the Telugu people, the 
work in the Arcot Mission, with which I was con- 

89 



90 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

nected, having thus far been almost entirely con- 
fined to the Tamil people, adjoining the Telugu 
border on the south. 

With three native assistants, a catechist, a 
reader, and a school-teacher, all of whom knew 
Telugu, which I also was able to use freely, we 
entered our " new diocese." 

As Europeans and Americans cannot live and 
keep their health in the ill-ventilated native houses 
in the thickly built streets of the India towns, even 
if the caste Hindus would permit them so to live, 
and as none of the very few European houses 
built for the government officials in the outskirts 
of the town could be had, it was necessary for 
myself and family to live in a tent while we were 
erecting a small house. We thus lived through 
the hottest months of the year, when the butter 
would sometimes turn into oil upon our dining- 
table, and on through the first burst of the early 
monsoon, or rainy season, when from the torrents 
of rain the earthen floor of our tent became so 
moist that our chairs would sink down to the 
rounds, and we would find a crop of green mold 
grown out on our shoes if they stood unused for 
a day or two, our clothes would feel damp when 
we put them on in the morning, and all was reek- 
ing with moisture around us. When two rooms 
of our little house were roofed in we moved into 
them, as preferable to a tent in such weather, 




X 

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C/5 



ESTABLISHING A NEIV STATION 91 

especially for our little children, and proceeded to 
the completion of the house. 

As soon as the rain was over we put up a little 
school-house church with mud walls and thatched 
with rushes, in which we held our Sabbath ser- 
vices for the very few native Christians who had 
accompanied us, and any others who might come 
in, and in which during the week we gathered a 
few children from the town, together with the 
children of our native assistants and servants, and 
opened a day-school. 

Out of curiosity a number of the non-Christian 
townspeople would come to our Sunday services 
in the little church, to see how we carried on 
Christian worship and to hear what was the doc- 
trine which we believed and preached. 

Meantime our native assistants and myself had 
been busily engaged in preaching each morning 
or evening in all the different streets of the town, 
and in the fifty villages and hamlets within four 
miles of our house. 

For this village preaching we would start early 
enough in the morning to reach the village in 
which we were to preach a little before sunrise, so 
as to gather an audience before the people went 
to their work for the day. Walking through the 
main streets and some of the side streets of the 
always compactly built village, we would select 
the best place to gather an audience, and mount- 



92 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

ing a pile of timber or heap of stones, or some 
partly tumbled-down wall, or some cart left in the 
street, we would ring our bell for the meeting by 
singing a Christian lyric to one of their beautiful 
Telugu tunes. The Telugus, as I have indicated 
in a preceding chapter, are exceedingly fond of 
music, and especially of their old weird and sweet 
tunes, which have come down through perhaps a 
hundred generations, sung by them, indeed, to the 
praises of their gods, but melodious and cap- 
tivating and well suited for vehicles for God's 
message of love. 

Perhaps we would not see a single person stir- 
ring when we began to sing, but in the still morn- 
ing air the voice of song would enter through the 
barred windows and through the cracks under or 
above the doors, and many a one, hearing the 
voice of singing, would spring from the mat on 
which he had slept, and come out, with the blanket 
or coarse sheet under which he had slept wrapped 
around him, to see what was the occasion of this 
early music. Seeing a party of strangers with a 
white foreigner standing together and singing, 
they would often come forward and Hsten as they 
were, while others, already dressed, would one 
after another join the throng, until sometimes we 
would have one half the village population gath- 
ered aroduy unbs sunrise, one third of whom would 
be wrapped in the blankets in which they had slept. 



ESTABLISHING A NEW STATION 93 

As soon as a good audience had assembled we 
would cease our singing and read a portion from 
the Bible, the catechist or reader would explain 
the passage and preach to them, and the mission- 
ary would follow, presenting God's love for man 
and the scheme of salvation through Jesus Christ 
more fully to them. At the conclusion one-page 
leaflets, containing a statement of Christian truth, 
would be gratuitously distributed, and Gospels or 
tracts of larger size would be offered them for a 
very small price, much less, indeed, than their 
cost, and which many a one would purchase be- 
cause they were so cheap, and because they had 
paid money for them, even though a small sum, 
would keep them and read them. 

While the matter of our message was the same 
in all the villages, — man in a state of sin and 
wretchedness, and God's plan for saving lost man, 
— yet the manner of giving the message would 
vary according to the degree of intelligence of the 
audience assembled to hear us. If it were an 
audience of ignorant laborers, we would in the 
simplest terms tell fhem of God our Father, who 
*' so loved the world, that He gave His only 
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him 
might not perish, but have everlasting Hfe," and 
in simplest terms tell them how they could avail 
themselves of that love and find that salvation. 

If it were a village of more cultivated people, 



94 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

especially where there were a good number of 
Brahmans, we would use higher illustrations and 
more ornate language, but still give the same 
message : man in sin, not at peace with holy God, 
man's utterly hopeless state, and God's way of 
giving life eternal, with quotations from their 
po^ts and their Vedas in illustration of the truth 
that we presented to them. Such villages we 
would more often visit in the evening, so that 
there might be more time for conversation or dis- 
cussion. We would commence our services a httle 
before sundown, but it would often be late at 
night before we would reach our home. 

Our preaching in the different streets of the 
town was the same in character, varying in our 
manner of presentation with the varying culture 
of the audiences before whom we spoke, whether 
in the farmers' or the artisans' or the merchants' 
or the Brahmans' street. 

Sometimes we would meet with the most 
courteous reception, and our message would be 
listened to with kindly attention, and the ques- 
tions asked at the conclusion of the preaching 
would be with the design of further elucidating 
the bearing of the truths which we had presented 
before them ; sometimes we would be met by 
stolid indifference or by contemptuous sneers ; 
and sometimes we would encounter angry oppo- 
sition^ and a sharp and long-continued discugsion 



ESTABLISHING A NEW STATION 95 

would ensue. It is then that the missionary feels 
the necessity of claiming the fulfilment of the 
promise, '' I will be with thy mouth, and teach 
thee what thou shalt say." And God fulfils it 
often in a wonderful way. 

This oral proclamation of the gospel, of God's 
way of life, in the vernaculars of the people, to the 
high and the low, the learned and the ignorant, is 
the chief weapon made use of in the Arcot Mis- 
sion ; for the potency of such proclamation of 
the gospel, backed by the printed Word freely 
distributed, is with us a fundamental doctrine. 

To obtain more of a hold on the higher classes, 
it has been the custom of many missions to estab- 
lish, from the incipiency of a mission, Anglo- 
vernacular schools of a higher grade, in which 
instruction is given in all the usual secular sub- 
jects, but with a daily Bible lesson, studied by all 
the classes and expounded by Christian teachers. 
In our mission, however, such schools have fol- 
lowed the accession of numbers as a necessity for 
the education of our own young people, and to 
them non-Christians are admitted and pursue the 
biblical studies with the Christian students. Such 
schools have been productive of blessed results. 

After the mission has gained a foothold in a 
region and more of the young men are being 
educated, a desire begins to spring up that the 
girls too should have a change to le^rn, Prompt- 



96 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

ing and fostering this desire, we can then open 
schools for the high-caste Hindu girls, and, visit- 
ing them in their homes, we can open out zenana 
work for educating their older sisters who cannot 
come out to a school, and often their mothers also 
and aunts will join those Httle classes. Our Bible 
\yomen, too, begin to find access to many houses, 
and the missionary ladies find their hands more 
than full in following out these most promising 
openings. Such work, however, cannot find an 
entrance usually on the first opening of work in a 
new region. 

In the Arcot Mission the medical missionary 
work has the rather been our adjuvant in gaining 
the confidence and affections of the people. When 
that agency is employed it is essential that two 
missionaries should be associated in opening the 
work in a new region ; the one to give his almost 
exclusive attention to direct evangelistic work at 
headquarters and in all the surrounding region, 
the other being at liberty to devote himself mainly 
to his hospital and medical work, always, however, 
coupling with that work the daily proclamation of 
the gospel to the multitudes that flock together 
to receive from him medical or surgical aid. 

As I went alone into this new region in the 
Telugu country, it was designed that I should 
give my exclusive attention to evangelistic work ; 
and this I did for the first few months, expect- 



ESTABLISHING A NEW STATION 97 

ing so to continue until joined by another mis- 
sionary. 

But God ordered otherwise. Scarcely were 
we settled in our new temporary house when the 
annual drawing of the idol-car in the town 
occurred. At eleven o'clock at night, as with 
torch-light procession the car was being drawn 
by the multitude, it became set; the ropes 
snapped, but it could not be moved. 

"The gods are angry! The gods are angry!" 
shouted the priests. " Run and bring cocoanuts 
to break over the wheels and propitiate the gods, 
or we are lost." 

Off ran the people to get cocoanuts for the 
libation. They were broken on the big wooden 
wheels, and the milk ran down freely. A well- 
to-do high-caste farmer had brought his. In 
striking one on the wheel to break it, it had 
slipped and faUen on the ground inside the wheel ; 
he reached his hand in under the front of the wheel 
to get the cocoanut ; the people were straining at 
the mended ropes ; just then the " gods became 
propitious," the car moved forward with a lurch, 
and passed over the hand and forearm of the 
farmer reaching for his cocoanut, breaking the 
bones and mangling the flesh. 

From my treatment of some of the workmen 
who had met with accidents in the building of my 
house or were taken with cholera, the people had 



98 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

come to know that I was a doctor. His friends 
carried the wounded man to his house in the main 
farmers' street of the town, and ran a quarter of 
a mile to my house to waken me and ask me to 
come and save the man's Hfe and if possible his 
arm and hand, the right hand. Taking restora- 
tives and necessary appliances, I hastened to his 
house to find them singing the death-wail over 
him. From nervous shock and loss of blood he 
had fainted, and they supposed him to be dead. 
The Lord gave me that man's life. How I worked 
over the case! There were ten bone fractures, 
besides the mangling of muscles, sinews, nerves, 
and blood-vessels. How our few Christians 
prayed! The man recovered and regained the 
use of even that hand, his plow-hand. 

He was a member of a large and influential 
family connection of landed farmers. Not one 
of that family ever joined in those idol-car obser- 
vances again. Few Sabbaths passed that some 
of them were not seen in our Christian service. 
None of them openly embraced Christianity, but 
from that day they were all the Christians' friends 
and defenders, and a few years later one of them, 
though not baptized, died calling on the Lord 
Jesus. 

From that time I could not prevent the people 
coming to me for treatment, especially in surgical 
cases, where their old-time native doctors were 



ESTABLISHING A NEW STATION 99 

utterly powerless. Little by little was I led to 
enlarge that department of my work, until, single- 
handed and with only such assistants as I had 
trained by daily practice, I often had more than 
one hundred patients in a day in my little mud- 
walled and thatched-roof dispensary. 

This medical work had thus far been generously 
supported by our English friends, mostly govern- 
ment officials, whom and whose families I was 
often called to treat, as there was at that time no 
other surgeon or physician within seventy-five 
miles. 

Now, however, it became necessary to put this 
work upon a better footing. Government aid was 
tendered, proper buildings were erected, and in 
1869 a well-appointed hospital, as well as dis- 
pensary, with quaHfied assistants, was organized 
and placed upon a permanent footing, with the 
medical missionary as its superintendent. 

But this distinctively medical work, or rather 
medico-evangelistic work, which Providence 
thrust upon me, and to which I was led to give 
so much of my time and strength for many years, 
cannot be detailed in this volume, for its magnifi- 
cent opportunities and its blessed fruits would 
alone require a volume for their presentation. 



VIII 

GOSPEL PREACHING TOURS 

When our house was completed and our tents 
were at liberty we commenced systematic gospel 
preaching tours through all the villages of our 
'* new diocese." 

We would take our tents, with a good supply 
of Gospels and tracts and some New Testaments 
and Bibles, chiefly in Telugu, but with always a 
few in Hindustani, Kanarese, and Tamil, in case 
we should meet any who knew only one of those 
languages, and go out for a tour of several weeks. 

Our first camp we would make some seven or 
eight miles from our station in one direction or 
another, and pitching our tents in a shady grove 
near some central village, we would preach in 
each of the villages within a radius of four miles 
of the tents; and then, moving our tents eight 
miles farther on, preach in all the villages within 
a similar circuit, and then move again, so con- 
tinuing the process as long as we were able to be 
out. 

100 



GOSPEL PREACHING TOURS 101 

Each morning while on these tours we would 
preach in three or four or more villages, and each 
evening in two or three. Leaving our tents at or 
before the first break of day, so as to catch the 
people before they should go out to their fields 
for their day's work, we would go first to the 
farthest village in which we expected to preach 
that day. Reaching that village usually before 
sunrise, before the people were astir, we would 
gather them together by the voice of song as we 
stood in the street; or, if very early, marching 
through the streets singing to awake the slum- 
berers, we would soon find ourselves surrounded 
by an audience of curious Hsteners. 

Presenting the truth to them in the way indi- 
cated in the last chapter, we would give out a few 
single-page leaflets, printed on paper of bright 
colors, of which the Hindus are very fond, and 
offer Scriptures, Gospels, and tracts on sale at a 
very small price. Bidding them good-by and 
inviting them to come and see us at our tent, or 
at our station whenever they should come to the 
periodical fair, to learn more about this divine way 
of Hfe, we would make our way to the next village 
on our way back to our tent. 

There the people had already arisen; the 
weavers would be getting their looms ready for 
their day's work, the farmers would be yoking 
their oxen to go to the fields, the carpenters sharp- 



io^ In the tiger Jungle 

ening their tools for their day's work, and the 
blacksmiths starting the fire in their forges ; but 
at the voice of the singing they would come to- 
gether to listen to what these strangers had to say. 

When we came to the next village we would 
find many of the people already at their work, 
and those who tilled the farther fields would be 
beyond our reach, and our audience would con- 
sist more of children ; and the women, standing in 
their back yards peering over the walls, would 
listen to our clearly spoken message, while the old 
men and those who had not yet gone to their 
work would form no small part of the audience. 

At a later hour, when the sun was too hot to 
allow of our gathering an audience or ourselves 
preaching in the open streets, we would often find 
a group gathered on the platform under the village 
council-tree. Such a tree is found at the entrance 
of very many of the Hindu villages, large or small. 
This council-tree is usually a banyan-tree, though 
sometimes a margosa or a mango or some other 
tree, and under it is a platform of stones or of sun- 
dried bricks, covered over with slabs of granite, 
raised some two feet or more above the level of 
the street, where the " elders " of the village meet 
to discuss affairs and settle disputes and adminis- 
ter rural justice. The platform is from twelve to 
twenty feet square, giving room for a good num- 
ber of the better class to be seated, Hindu fashion, 



GOSPEL PREACHING TOURS 103 

cross-legged like a tailor, while others stand 
around or sit on their heels in the street, as we, 
seated on one edge of the platform, are preaching 
to them. If we wish to retain our audience we 
must ourselves sit down, for it is not polite for 
those being instructed to be seated while their 
teachers or preachers stand. 

If there is no village council-tree, there will 
usually be found in the main street a council-shed, 
or chdvadiy the whole side toward the street being 
open, and that is a favorite place for us to gather 
our audience and preach when the sun is too hot 
for us to stand in the street. 

We usually return to our tents by about nine 
o'clock; at some seasons of the year, however, 
when there is little work in the fields, we can 
gather an audience until a later hour. I have 
myself, accompanied by one native preacher, 
starting before daylight from the tent, made a 
circuit of eleven miles on foot, preaching in seven 
villages or hamlets ere returning to my breakfast 
at my tent at eleven o'clock, and then, the even- 
ing being moonlight, we preached in four more, 
making eleven villages or hamlets in which we two 
had given the divine message in that one day ; and 
it was the first time that any of these people had 
heard the name of Jesus. We usually went two 
and two to the villages, the senior catechist tak- 
ing the junior assistant, and another assistant ac- 



104 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

companying me. We always kept an accurate 
record of the villages in which we preached, the 
number of persons who Hstened to us in each 
village, male and female, and the number of books 
or tracts sold or given away. 

From each center where we pitched our tent 
we' would reach thirty or fifty or seventy villages, 
according to the density of the population, before 
we moved our tent to the next center. Some- 
times we would find even more villages than this. 
I remember pitching our tent in a plain between 
the hills in 1868, where, by extending our radius 
to five miles, five of us reached one hundred and 
sixty villages in eighteen days before we moved 
our tents. 

In one year myself and three native assistants 
had thus preached in ten hundred and sixty-one 
different towns, villages, or hamlets, our audiences 
aggregating twenty thousand and twelve, as we 
found on going over our records on the 31st of 
December. We had preached in many of the 
towns from two to six times each, but at least 
once had the gospel been proclaimed that year in 
more than one thousand villages, and this had 
covered not more than one third of the circuit, 
with a radius of sixteen miles, around our station. 

This shows the density of the population, and 
indicates how even the agricultural population is 
all gathered in villages ; for none of the farmers 



GOSPEL PREACHING TOURS 105 

live out upon the land which they cultivate. 
Their flocks and herds also are during most of the 
year, for safety's sake, brought into the village 
folds or stables over the night. The people all 
thus dwelling in villages gives us a far better 
chance to reach them than though they were 
scattered all over the country as in America. 
The hamlets are often quite small, having perhaps 
not more than fifty inhabitants in some, while 
many villages of farmers will number a thousand 
people, and a number of villages in each tdhikj 
or county, will number from three thousand to 
five or even ten thousand people. To every one 
of these hamlets, villages, or towns do we en- 
deavor, on our tours, to carry the offer of eternal 
life through Jesus Christ our Lord. 



IX 

GOSPEL FREACHING AT HINDU FAIRS 

Besides these systematic gospel preaching 
tours in the villages spoken of in the last chapter, 
we endeavor to reach as many periodical fairs and 
markets as we can without neglecting other work. 

Every taluk has a weekly market at two or 
more different centers. At each one of these 
weekly markets or fairs people from fifty to 
one hundred villages will gather; the farmers 
bringing in their crops, the weavers their cloth, 
the fruit-raisers their fruit, the gold- and silver- 
smiths their workmanship, the spice merchants 
their spices from distant centers, and householders 
from several hundred families come together to 
buy their supplies. 

The roads and the foot-paths across the fields 
leading toward the market-places will be alive 
with travelers from morning until ten o'clock or 
noon. This weekly market is often held in some 
large grove. Hundreds of little tents will be 
pitched, under which the more expensive wares 

106 




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GdSP^L PREACHING AT HINDU PAIRS lO? 

will be exhibited, while the shade of the trees is 
sufficient for the multitude of those who have less 
costly wares, or vegetables and fruits. From noon 
until 3 P.M. the fair is in full blast, and continues, 
with slowly lessening crowds, until four to six 
o'clock, when all the people will have departed for 
their homes. 

To visit these markets we have to be out in the 
heat of the day ; but the opportunity is so good 
to gather large audiences of those who have come 
from fifty or more villages, and perchance send 
by them a Httle seed of truth out to many of 
these distant places, that we brave the sun and 
give our day to the one market with its half-score 
or more of successive audiences. We keep a Hst 
of all these weekly or monthly fairs in each of the 
taluks in which we work, with the dates on which 
they are successively held, so that whenever we 
are in a county we may attend any of the fairs 
within reach of the place where we are encamped. 

At some of these fairs we find the people too 
much engrossed in business to give us much 
attention; still, by mounting a platform under 
some tree a little way from the busy bustle of the 
fair, we can always secure an audience more or 
less attentive, and who will stop a longer or shorter 
time to hear what these preachers say. At other 
times so many of the people attending the fair 
will leave their business and come to our preach- 



loa /v WB riGEk juncle 

ing places, and listen so attentively and so long, 
as to interfere decidedly with the business of the 
fair. 

I well remember going out to such a weekly 
fair many years ago, in the northwest corner of 
my field. It was the first time that the gospel 
had been carried there. Reaching the market- 
grove with my two native assistants by two o'clock 
in the afternoon, we took our stand under a tree 
on a little rising ground adjacent to a low, flat- 
roofed temple, which some devotee had erected 
many years ago at this grove in fulfilment of a 
vow. 

We sang our songs of Zion ; a large crowd 
surrounded us. One of us preached and then 
another. The crowd increased until not one half 
of those who had come together to hear us could 
see or hear the preacher. 

One of the interested hearers, who was of short 
stature and too far away to hear distinctly where 
he could not see the speaker's face, pressed 
through the crowd and made a singular sugges- 
tion; it was that the missionary should mount 
upon the flat roof of the temple and speak from 
there, saying that then all the people at the fair 
could both see and hear. A murmur of assent 
through the crowd witnessed their approval of the 
proposition. By their aid the temple was mounted. 
The hum of the market ceased, because the buy- 



GOSPEL PREACHING AT HINDU FAIRS 109 

ers and the venders had nearly all of them come 
forward to. listen. The Hindu merry-go-round 
had ceased its circumvolutions, because the riders 
of the wooden horses and the people who man- 
aged it had all joined the expectant crowd. The 
Hindu jugglers under an adjacent tree had put 
their paraphernaHa in their sacks, for no one would 
watch their performance now. The snake-charm- 
ers adjacent had covered their serpents in their 
Httle flat baskets and, tying the covers on, had 
mingled in the audience. The mittai venders, or 
sweetmeat merchants, alone remained at their 
stalls, as the luscious sweetmeats were too great 
a temptation to the crowd of boys around ; but 
the cloth merchants and the grain merchants and 
the iron merchants had left their wares without 
any one to guard them, or at least but one to 
several stalls, while all the others pressed toward 
the temple. 

In the hush that followed and with the clear- 
sounding Telugu language, the voice of the mis- 
sionary could be heard by all the assembled 
multitude, and he could see every person in the 
crowd as he stood ten feet above their heads. I 
was never more impressed by any audience to 
whom I have ever spoken than by those multi- 
tudes, who had deserted their stalls and their 
traffic and pressed forward in eager silence to 
listen, for the first time, to that wondrous message. 



110 77^ THE TIGER JUNGLE 

" Brothers," said the missionary, " I have come 
from far to tell you the best news that was ever 
heard by mortal ears. I will tell it to you now, 
and when I have done I will gladly answer any 
questions which you may put to me about this 
wonderful message. 

. " Brothers, there is but one true God. He 
created, preserves, and controls all things. We 
intelHgent men could not look up to a God whom 
we did not acknowledge to be superior to our- 
selves in every way. He must be wiser, stronger, 
holier than we, or we could not reverence Him. 
This true God, that made all worlds, is omnipo- 
tent, omniscient, and omnipresent; He sees all 
things ; He sees us here and now. That God is 
holy, He is without sin; but we are filled with 
sin ; there is not a man among us who dare stand 
forth and say, ' I am without sin.' So long as we 
are polluted with sin and God is holy there can 
be no peace, no communion between us sinful men 
and holy God. This your own poets and sages 
freely admit and teach. Does not your own 
Telugu poet, Vemana, say : 

' The soul defiled with sin, what real worship pays it? 
The pot unclean, the cookery, who eats it? 
The heart impure, though it essays devotion, 
Can Deity receive it? Nay, nay. Be pure, O man.' 

" Will desert fastings, or pilgrimages to shrines, 
or bathing in the holy Ganges, or physical tortures 



GOSPEL PREACHING AT HINDU FAIRS 111 

make us at peace with God ? Does not Vemana 
say: 

* 'Tis not by roaming deserts wild, nor gazing at the sky ; 
'Tis not by bathing in the stream, nor pilgrimage to shrine ; 
But thine own heart must thou make pure, and then, and 

then alone, 
Shalt thou see Him no eye hath kenned, shalt thou behold 
thy King.' 

** We cannot ourselves by our own effort attain 
this purity of heart and atone for the sins that we 
have committed. My Brahman brothers, whom 
I see standing before me here, do you not in your 
evening ablutions at the river chant this Sanskrit 
slpka ? 

* Papoham, papa karmaham, pdpatma, papasambhavaha, 
Trahi mdm, Krupayd D^va, sharana gata vatsala. ' 

'^ Does not that mean, * I am a sinner ; my 
actions are sinful, my soul is sinful; all that per- 
tains to me is polluted with sin. Do Thou, O 
God, that hast mercy on those who seek Thy 
refuge, do Thou take away my sin.' You thus 
roll it back upon God, yourselves not knowing 
how it can be done. 

" Brothers, there is a way by which we can get 
rid of this burden of sin and of all sin's conse- 
quences. It is to tell you how that can be done 
that I have come here. My ancestors, in the 
far-away land^ used to worship idols and wander 



112 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

in darkness as you do now. Men who had learned 
of the true God and of His way of expiating sin 
came and told my ancestors all about it; they 
accepted the new way ; they found pardon, peace, 
and joy ; and my people have sent me here to tell 
you how you too may find it. 

'* God, our Father, is a God of love. He ' so 
loved the world, that He gave His only begotten 
Son, that whosoever believeth in Him might not 
perish, but have everlasting life.' He sent His 
Son into this world to take upon Himself our 
natures, to become man like us, to show us the 
way of life, and to expiate our sins. That Son 
of God, Jesus Christ, was born into this world, of 
a virgin, as an infant. It was not in the land where 
we English-speaking people dwell that He was 
born. Midway between this your land and the 
land of the English there is another country, 
Judea, a part of your Asia. He was born there, 
not as a white man wearing European clothes and 
speaking the English language ; nay. He was born 
more like yourselves, more of your complexion, 
wearing Oriental clothing like yourselves, the son 
of Oriental parents, living amid Oriental surround- 
ings. We of the far West, though so different, 
have accepted Him as our Saviour, for He is 
the Saviour of the whole world, and we bring 
Him to you of the farther Orient as your divine 
Redeemer." 



GOSPEL PREACHING AT HINDU FAIRS 113 

The missionary then told them of the birth in 
the manger of Bethlehem, when the wise men of 
the East brought their gifts ; of His spotless life ; 
His marvelous works of healing and mercy ; His 
parables and His teachings ; His sacrificial death, 
when He atoned for the sins of the whole world 
if they would believe in Him ; of His burial, His 
resurrection, His ascent to the right hand of God ; 
His mediatorial reign there for us ; and told them 
all that they needed to do was to be sorry for and 
repent of and forsake their sins, and come in faith 
to Jesus Christ, and say to Him in prayer, " O 
Jesus Christ, I am a sinner ; I cannot get rid of 
my sin. Thou canst take it away ; do Thou take 
away all my sin and make me Thy disciple, and 
when I die take me to dwell with Thee;" that 
if they would do this sincerely and follow that 
Jesus lovingly, He would do all the rest; that 
this was the message that we had come from far 
to bring to them. 

For nearly half an hour that whole audience 
had Hstened with the closest attention, and when 
the missionary ceased speaking, earnest questions 
were asked by the eager listeners, answers to 
which kept the audience still lingering from their 
trade; and when the missionary, cHmbing down 
from the temple roof, and his assistants offered 
for sale the " Life of the Divine Redeemer," as the 
Gospels are called, with tracts that explained the 



114 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

way of salvation more fully, from many a wallet 
money that had been brought to purchase other 
things was spent to buy the printed message to 
carry to their distant homes, to be read by their 
families, their neighbors, and their friends. 

It is not always, by any means, that we are 
listened to with this eagerness. Often there are 
angry interruptions made by priests who have 
perchance come to the fair ; sometimes there are 
discussions which continue for an hour or longer, 
listened to by from one to five hundred intently 
to their close. We do not court these discussions 
in public, as angry passions are likely to be 
aroused, and an angry man is rarely ever con- 
vinced of the truth presented by his opponent. 
But we do not shun them when brought upon us, 
for the attention of the listeners is by them 
sharply drawn to the difference between God's 
plan of salvation and the best heathen system. 
And the seed dropped is likely to be carried 
to many scattered villages by those who have 
listened without an angry spirit of opposition. 



X 

TREATED WITH A SHOWER OF STONES 

The rapt attention on the first presentation of 
the gospel message on the part of a Hindu 
audience, such as detailed in the last chapter, is 
not by any means the rule in our preaching in the 
fairs and the streets. A marked case of the op- 
posite kind comes vividly to my mind, and my 
notes made at the time furnish further details. 

While on a tour in the northeastern corner of 
the Mysore kingdomx, which extends to within ten 
miles of Madanapalle, Catechist John Hill and 
myself had gone from our camp into a densely 
populated town. At the cross-streets in front of 
the village chavadi, or council-house, we had 
taken our stand, and ere long were surrounded 
by a goodly number of people, many of whom 
were Brahmans. They listened to our singing, 
to our reading from the Scriptures, with scowls 
and evident hostility, but did not enter into argu- 
ment. When we had finished we offered them 
the leaflets, tracts, and Gospels as a gift, but they 



116 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

would have none of them. We could get no 
kindly response to anything that we said. We 
turned to go back to our tent. 

As we passed slowly down the street a hooting 
began behind us, and soon small stones, pellets of 
earth, and other missiles began to shower upon 
us; One stone the size of an egg struck me on 
the head, but my pith hat prevented its doing 
harm. Turning to the catechist who accom- 
panied me, I said, " We must go back and meet 
these people. It will not do to let them think 
that we are driven away from our work." 

Turning around, we both walked steadily back 
toward the hooting and missile-throwing crowd. 
Seeing our quiet mien and fearlessness, the crowd 
gave way. Walking directly up to the group of 
Brahmans in front of the chavadi, to whom we 
had been chiefly preaching, and who, we believed, 
were the instigators of this attack, I said to them : 

" Brothers, if you wish to stone us, you may 
stone us to our face. We have come back to you 
so that you can hit us every time. But first we 
would like to know why it is that you stone 
us. Is it because we, leaving our country, have 
come at our own expense to tell you of what we 
consider the best news ever revealed to man ? Is 
it because we have told you that the God who 
made us all so loved the world that He sent His 
only begotten Son to suffer and die for us, that a 



TREATED IVITH A SHOWER OF STONES 117 

way might be opened for the pardon of our sins ? 
Is it because we have told you that the Son of 
God came to this world, and took upon Himself 
our nature, and became man in order that He 
might understand all our weaknesses and temp- 
tations and become to us a sympathizing High 
Priest? Is it because we have told you the 
divine words of instruction and comfort which 
He spoke to those about Him and left on record 
for you and us? " 

The whole crowd had by this time pressed for- 
ward to listen to what we were quietly saying 
to the Brahman priests. The priests themselves 
seemed to feel ashamed of what had been done 
and were now ready to listen. Point by point, 
asking them if it was for this or for that that they 
pelted us, I went over each topic of my previous 
discourse. All listened eagerly now. The sullen, 
hostile look had gone. Shame for themselves and 
evident appreciation of the spirit that we had 
shown led them ere long to interrupt me, saying, 
" It was only some of the vagabonds that cast 
stones at you ; we will now see that you have fair 
play." 

When we had finished our second preaching to 
them, and told them that we had in our hands a 
history of this divine Redeemer, the Gospel of 
Luke, which we would sell them for a duddu^ one 
of their coins, worth about one cent each, and 



118 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

asked if they would not like to obtain some of 
these and learn more about this Saviour Jesus 
Christ, one after another took out his money-bag 
and purchased, until every Gospel and tract that 
we had with us had been bought ; and then they 
appointed five of their chief men to escort us 
politely to our tent, and begged our pardon for 
the indignities which '' this graceless rabble " had 
put upon us. 

This and the one spoken of in the last chapter 
are two instances of very different treatment met 
with on our tours. We do not usually meet such 
eager listening on the one hand, or maltreatment 
on the other, but we go forward with the work, 
preaching and scattering that gospel that is show- 
ing itself more and more to be *' the power of God 
unto salvation to every one that beheveth." 



XI 

A FRUITFUL PREACHING TOUR 

I AM moved to reproduce here, somewhat 
abridged, a diary letter written on a long preach- 
ing tour in 1872, to give a sample of the varied 
daily incidents on such a tour and to show how 
we sometimes reap fruits in our missionary work. 
The letter was addressed to the secretary of the 
Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed 
Church, and was pubHshed in full in the " In- 
telligencer " of that time. 

" Rayalpad, Mysore, May 23, 1872. 

" I am out here at present on another preach- 
ing tour. Under the pressure of the terrible 
reductions forced upon us in January, we feared 
that we would have to reHnquish touring for this 
year ; but enough has come in, in donations from 
friends in this country, to enable us to resume our 
preaching tours in an economical way. 

*' I came to this place, the first stage on the 
road to Bangalore, just over the boundary in the 

119 



120 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

Mysore kingdom, because there is a little trav- 
eler's bungalow here that we can occupy and save 
the expense of bringing out our tents. Dr. E. C. 
Scudder and I first visited this region in 1862, 
just ten years since, and I toured it over again 
thoroughly in 1867, but have not been able to 
visit it since until now. 

" This morning we were out in a town three and 
one half miles from here, where I had never be- 
fore been, and had an unusually nice audience, 
who all gathered and sat in the village court and 
veranda, while at their invitation I sat on the 
magistrate's platform and preached to them of the 
love of Jesus and His free salvation. As I spoke 
of what He had done and suffered for us, I 
noticed a moisture in many eyes, and at the con- 
clusion the village magistrate and the village 
schoolmaster each purchased a New Testament, 
while all who could read eagerly bought Gospels 
and tracts. 

"Saturday, May 25th. I rode in yesterday 
morning twelve miles to Madanapalle, to perform 
an important operation at the hospital and to 
attend to other work at the station. After the 
operation, which I am glad to say turned out well, 
I preached to the crowd of patients waiting in the 
hospital veranda, and had, as always there, a most 
attentive and respectful audience. 

" I have reason to be more and more gratified 




H 
It. 
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> 
O 



o 
O 



A FRUITFUL PREACHING TOUR 121 

with the aspects of the medical department of my 
work in this region. The Httle dispensary, which 
I began in 1865 in order to bring the villagers to 
me to hear the truth, when the doctors on account 
of my jungle fever forbade my going to the vil- 
lages, has grown on and on until I now have one 
of the finest up-country hospitals and dispensaries 
in all the Madras Presidency, second, of course, 
to our large mission hospital and dispensary at 
Arcot, but second to few others. As you know, 
I carried it on entirely on subscriptions raised in 
India until 1869. It then became so heavy a 
burden, both in expense and work to be done, 
that I felt that I could not longer bear it all my- 
self, and at my request the government took it 
over and estabhshed it as a first-class government 
hospital and dispensary, placing it, however, under 
my full control ; and from that time to this, three 
years, I have been using it more and more as a 
missionary hospital. 

" I am told now by the authorities at Madras 
that they regard it still as a mission hospital, for 
which they are responsible no further than to see 
that it has all the funds necessary. At my urgent 
request, however, the deputy inspector-general of 
the medical department was sent here in February 
to see and report upon its working. He gave in 
an exceedingly flattering report, calling special 
attention to the large percentage of important 



122 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

and successful operations, and the small pecuniary- 
outlay per hundred patients treated. As the re- 
sult of his visit, we shall receive still greater aid 
this year from the government. 

" During the last month I have had the privi- 
lege of receiving two adults into our congregation 
at Madanapalle, in connection with my dispensary- 
work. One, a man of forty, came from the Kurnool 
district to the hospital some months ago with 
what then seemed almost an incurable disease. 
While in the hospital he received religious instruc- 
tion with the others, and on his being discharged 
cured a few weeks since, he gave in his name as 
a Christian, determined to live and die in the re- 
ligion by whose agency he believed that his life 
had been saved. He has obtained employment 
in Madanapalle, so that he can remain here and 
receive further instruction and be baptized. 

"Tuesday, May 28th. We rose this morning 
between four and five o'clock, and walked out 
across the hills five miles to Adakil. It was my 
first visit there. Our audience consisted almost 
entirely of Brahmans and Mohammedans; they 
listened well and purchased a number of Scriptures 
and tracts. There is a great change coming over 
the people, as evidenced by the way they listen 
to our preaching. 

" Day before yesterday, Sunday evening, we 
preached in the main street of the town of 



A FRUITFUL PREACHING TOUR 123 

Rayalpad itself. Twice before when I had been 
here, in 1862 and 1867, I had found rather tur- 
bulent audiences; now one could not ask for a 
more attentive or polite audience than we found. 
We began by showing man's lost condition and 
the insufficiency of their system to redeem a soul 
from eternal death. 

" An aged and respectable Brahman said, ' We 
will admit all that, sir; now will you not please 
tell us how we can be saved from hell ? That is 
what we most earnestly desire to know.' And 
he spoke with real feeling. 

" With such a request I tried to set forth, in all 
its simplicity and loveliness, that wonderful scheme 
of grace, showing how it was that without a sacri- 
fice for sin there could be no remission, and that 
Christ had made that one complete sacrifice that 
was to atone for the sins of the whole world, and 
how to obtain a share in it. As I finished, the 
Brahman who had spoken before, and who had 
followed me most intently all the way through, 
said to another, ' Well, we never heard such won- 
derful words before; we must examine into it 
carefully.' And he purchased some of our books 
and urged others to do the same. 

" As soon as we finish this region, which will 
take ten days more, I expect to take my tents and 
go out twenty miles northwest of Madanapalle on 
a medico-evangelistic tour. An Enghsh gentle- 



124 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

man in this district, who takes great interest in 
my medical work, has proposed to pay the ex- 
penses of such a tour up to Rs 200 ; and as an- 
other has already sent me Rs 100 for the same 
purpose, I am getting ready my medicines and 
going out. It is very hard work for one to carry 
on both medical and evangelistic work in tents, 
but it pays, and, God willing, I hope to do a good 
deal of it this year. 

" Gattu, June 15th. We completed the tour of 
which I last wrote on the 5 th of June, and re- 
turned to Madanapalle to spend the Sabbath 
there, as it was our communion season. It was 
an interesting and, I trust, profitable time. We 
were permitted to receive one adult to the com- 
munion on confession of his faith, an educated 
young man employed under government in the 
public works department, and five by certificate 
from other churches. I also baptized one adult 
and his son, converts from heathenism, who have 
long been under instruction, and one who had 
been under suspension was restored. Our Chris- 
tian congregation at Madanapalle now numbers 
over one hundred, and, I trust, is growing in all 
good things. 

" After spending the Sabbath at home, and 
having four days to prepare our chests of medi- 
cines, I started out again, June loth, with my 
native helpers and my traveling dispensary, for a 



A FRUITFUL PREACHING TOUR 125 

two months* tour in this direction, northwest 
from Madanapalle. I have with me four native 
preachers and two medical assistants for dis- 
pensing medicines, wishing to be able to preach 
night and morning in the villages, and to preach 
to and treat all who come to the tent during the 
day for medicines. 

" Our first camp was at Gattu, a town eighteen 
miles west by north of Madanapalle. It is a place 
where we have often toured before, and one near 
which several villages have at different times 
promised to come over to Christianity. We are 
going slowly and thoroughly over the field now, 
hoping that the time has come when the Lord will 
give some of them courage and faith to come out 
on the Lord's side ; for we believe they are thor- 
oughly convinced of the truth of Christianity and 
are only held back by fear from embracing it. 

" Gollapalle Tope, Tuesday, July i6th. We 
have swung round now to this place, our third 
encampment on this tour, fifteen miles from 
Madanapalle on another road, and eight miles 
from our former encampment. This morning we 
rose at four o'clock and started before it was 
fairly light to go to a cluster of villages nestled 
in among the hills to the north of this, which we 
had never before reached. After a stony and 
thorny walk of nearly six miles through the 
mountain jungle, we came into a valley where a 



126 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

number of villages have been built. We preached 
in all these and were most cordially received. 
Indeed, I found there some old patients who had 
been treated by us at Madanapalle, and they 
seemed almost persuaded to become Christians. 

" On reaching my tent again I found a crowd 
of nearly fifty, who were waiting for treatment, 
to whom the catechist whom I had left at camp 
for that purpose had been preaching, and to whom 
he had given tickets entithng them to treatment, 
on each of which is printed a concise statement 
of the way of salvation through Jesus Christ. 

" I sat down at once and commenced their 
treatment. It was after twelve o'clock before I 
got through with all who were waiting and was 
able to stop for breakfast. In the afternoon other 
crowds came. I am having from sixty to one 
hundred patients daily. To all of these we preach 
before giving medicines, and find them most will- 
ing listeners ; and, as almost every patient is ac- 
companied by one or two friends, we preach each 
day to twice our number of patients at the tent, 
besides those we reach in the villages. 

" Thursday, July 1 8th. Yesterday we were 
going out to a market-town six miles through the 
hills, as it was the weekly market-day there and 
we wished to preach to the crowds that would 
assemble ; but it commenced raining before 5 A.M. 
Q,nd rained almost continuously through the day, 



A FRUITFUL PREACHING TOUR 127 

I was surprised, however, to find numbers of 
patients dropping in through the day in spite of 
the rain. They had heard that I was soon to 
move my camp on, and, fearful of missing their 
chance, they came through the rain for treatment. 
To-day it has been showery, but I have had some 
seventy patients and was able to go out preaching 
in the evening. 

" I have never, I think, seen such real earnest- 
ness in the reception of our message as now. I 
cannot help thinking that we are on the eve of an 
important movement. In this region are numbers 
of villages where they have been promising us for 
the last three or four years that they would be- 
come Christians. They have renewed the promise 
from time to time, and I hope some of them are 
now ready to join us. 

'' We are going to-morrow morning early to a 
village of Mala weavers and cultivators three miles 
from here, which one of the catechists visited a 
month ago from another encampment, and where 
some of the people seemed ready to join us. I 
have, however, gone so many times to villages 
hoping to receive the people, and found that they 
had meantime been frightened into withdrawing 
again, that I hope with trembling. God grant 
that this time we may not be disappointed ! My 
six assistants and myself have this evening been 
holding a special prater- meeting in their behalf^ 



128 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

praying that they may have grace and strength 
given them from on high boldly to confess Christ 
to-morrow morning. 

" Friday evening, July 19th. The morning has 
dawned, and blessed be God's glorious name for 
ever and ever; verily our mouths are filled with 
praise and thanksgiving. 

" As we planned yesterday, we went out early 
this morning to the village of Timmapalle. The 
people all assembled, small and great, on the 
smooth granite slope at the base of the rocky hill 
at the foot of which their village nestled. The 
catechist to whom they had given their promise 
a month before first addressed them, urging the 
fulfilment of their promise ; I followed, taking as 
my theme, ' " How long halt ye between two 
opinions? if the Lord be God, follow Him;" if 
these your idols be God, then stand by them. 
The decision should no longer be deferred.' Then 
Jesus Christ, as the one and all-sufficient Saviour, 
was lovingly set forth before them. 

'* When we had finished, the head man of the 
village, a gray-haired old patriarch, spoke up : 
' Put my name down as a Christian. I at least 
will no longer halt between two opinions ; Jesus 
Christ must be my Saviour.' After a little his 
younger brother said, * Add my name to his.' 

** There was a painful pause. I asked, * Is there 
not another man here that dares to make a third ? ' 



A FRUITFUL PREACHING TOUR 129 

The last man in the audience, a man of thirty, 
said, 'Yes, sir; I too will be a Christian.' Then 
others to the number of ten heads of families gave 
in their names for themselves and families, the 
women also being there, as the Mala women 
might be, and agreeing. 

** Placing a sheet of paper on the granite 
boulder by the side of which we had stood in 
speaking, a covenant was drawn out, in which 
they covenanted to renounce all their idols, to 
give up all heathen practices and customs, and to 
observe the precepts of the gospel so far as they 
knew them or should be further instructed in 
them ; we, on our part, covenanting to give them 
a catechist who should reside near them and daily 
teach them in the way of life, and to establish a 
school for the education of their children. Then, 
having commended them in prayer to God 
Jehovah, whom they had now taken as their 
God, and promising to come again soon, we left 
them and came back to our camp. 

" They seem well-to-do, earnest men ; they 
have been considering the step long, and we hope 
they will be firm. There are several more heads 
of families belonging to the village, who were 
absent to-day ; but they are coming too. 

*' It was after nine o'clock when we got back 
to the tent, and I found a crowd of nearly a hun- 
dred waiting for medicines. After preaching I 



130 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

commenced treating them, and worked on until 
twelve o'clock; but finding the crowd growing 
scarcely perceptibly less, I stopped work for a few 
minutes and ate my breakfast, while one of the 
catechists was preaching again to the crowd out- 
side ; and then I began once more, having scarcely 
a moment's rest during the day and not finishing 
until dark. I have had one hundred and thirty- 
eight patients to-day, of whom some seventy 
were new cases, and some of them important 
ones, which took me much time. It has been a 
wearying, but intensely interesting, day to me. 
If the village which joined us this morning stands 
firm, without a doubt a number of others will join 
us at once. In fact, several have pledged that as 
soon as one village came over and stood firm and 
survived the persecutions they would have, they 
too would come. 

*' The arch-fiend will make every effort to make 
these men turn back, and I have just made ar- 
rangements to move our camp to-morrow morn- 
ing and pitch it close by their village for a couple 
of weeks, to support and encourage them by our 
presence. 

" I had before promised to go into Madanapalle 
myself to-morrow to operate on two patients for 
cataract, whom I have sent in there this week, as 
such operations cannot be managed in a tent. I 
shall therefore go in myself early in the morning, 



A FRUITFUL PREACHING TOUR 131 

but my tent and native helpers will go on to Tim- 
mapalle, and I will join them there, God willing, 
on Monday. 

"Timmapalle, Saturday, July 27th. This has 
been an exceedingly busy and eventful week. I 
went on horseback to Madanapalle last Saturday 
morning, as I had proposed, and on getting off 
my pony at the hospital found everything ready 
for me, and proceeded to operate at once on a 
man of standing, a revenue inspector, for cataract, 
extracting the lens. The operation promises to 
be a successful one. Other work kept me very 
busy during the day. On Sunday I preached in 
our church, and on Monday morning had to at- 
tend to matters at the dispensary, and operate on 
another man for cataract, and was returning home 
to breakfast, intending then to come out here, 
when an express messenger reached me from an 
English gentleman, a government official at Pal- 
maner, thirty-four miles south, begging me to 
come without a moment's delay and see his wife, 
who was dangerously ill. He had sent out a 
bullock coach, posting it for me half-way, in con- 
fidence that I would come. 

" Much as I desired to come back speedily to 
this village, I felt it my duty to go. I arrived at 
Palmaner at 11 p.m. and found the lady indeed 
very ill, and was obliged to stay in attendance on 
her until Friday morning before it was safe to 



132 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

leave her. I was very sorry to lose this four days 
from my tent at this critical time, but as it was a 
call of duty, and as I received a liberal fee, which 
will help me bear the expenses of this tour for 
many days longer, I could not complain. I have 
had a long horseback ride in the sun to-day, more 
than thirty miles, to reach this place, but I felt 
that I must be back as soon as possible. Since 
reaching here this evening I have received the 
names of the remaining eleven families of this 
village, Timmapalle, and the names of five families 
from the hamlet of Razapalle, half a mile north, 
and the names of nine families of Nalcheru- 
vupalle, one and a half miles northeast. This 
makes twenty- five families who have given in 
their names to be Christians to-day, in addition 
to the ten before. Pray for us, that the Lord 
may make these all stanch and steadfast Chris- 
tians, for they will meet with much persecution. 

** Monday, July 29th. The arch-fiend is doing 
his best, or rather worst, to frighten these people 
into giving up trying to be Christians. Saturday 
night and yesterday morning evil- disposed per- 
sons from other villages got hold of these people 
and succeeded in frightening them so, with such 
pictures of the evils which were sure to come upon 
them for renouncing their old gods, that some of 
them actually fled in terror to the jungle and hid 
all day yesterday ; others hid in caves ; others 



A FRUITFUL PREACHING TOUR 133 

barred themselves in their close houses and did no 
cooking, lest smoke should reveal their presence. 

" Only a few had courage to come to my tent 
for worship in the morning ; more came in the 
evening; and to-day, as they see that no harm 
has come on them so far, they seem less fearful. 

" I expected great difficulty in getting land 
here for a school-house chapel and native helpers' 
house, as the landholders are all banded against 
us; so the joint magistrate of the district, an 
English Christian gentleman and one of my warm- 
est supporters, came out here to-day on purpose 
to show to the people about here his sympathy in 
the movement and to secure for us the needed 
land. I am glad to say we succeeded in getting 
the very piece I wanted. A necessary surgical 
operation yesterday, performed on the son of the 
owner of that piece of ground, helped our negotia- 
tions wonderfully. 

" Friday, August 2d. We have begun to erect 
the building which is to serve both as school- 
house and church here, for the present, for the 
villagers near enough to attend here. It is to be 
of mud or adobe walls, with thatched roof, fifteen 
by forty feet in size. The people here contribute 
their labor toward the building and furnish the 
materials for the roof. The needed money out- 
lay must be met by special donations for the 
purpose. 



134 In the tiger jUMglE 

" Wednesday, August 7th. Have been on the 
move again since my last date. Saturday morn- 
ing early I rode in to the hospital for two more 
operations and to attend to the location of an ad- 
ditional hospital building, which is to be erected 
for us by government. Spending Sunday at 
home, I returned to this place. We are busily 
engaged in preaching the gospel in all of the 
towns and villages within five miles of our tent. 
A steady stream of patients for treatment con- 
tinues. My evenings I give up to the instruction 
of new converts, having them in my tent every 
night. I have also people from the high-caste 
villages near by, who come into the tent and sit 
freely side by side with the Mala converts. I have 
had many interesting conversations with people 
from the adjacent high- caste villages. My stay- 
ing here and treating their sick is incHning them 
to be friendly to the new converts, instead of 
persecuting them ; I hope so, at least. 

" Sunday, August nth. Yesterday was the 
weekly market-day at the town of Burrakayala- 
kota, one mile from here. We were all intending 
to go there and preach, but I was kept on my cot 
in the tent by a severe pull of jungle fever. I 
have been out so much in the sun and wet for the 
two and a half months of this tour, and with plenty 
of long, hard rides and walks, that I find myself 
having an attack of fever every few days. In 



A FRUITFUL PREACHlhIG TOUR 135 

fact, if I did not hug the quinine bottle pretty- 
closely I would be quite knocked up; and just 
now I am anxious to be able to look thoroughly 
after this opening work. I carry a small bottle 
of quinine in my pocket wherever I go, and am 
usually able to anticipate and stave off the attack, 
but yesterday I was floored. 

" The native helpers, however, went to the fair 
and had a very interesting time. At the conclu- 
sion of their preaching a respectable, gray-haired 
old man, a Mala cultivator, came to them and 
asked after me, saying that he had hoped to meet 
me there, having heard that we were in this 
region ; for he and his people wanted to become 
Christians, and he wished to ask me to come to 
their village and receive them. 

" He and his nephew were old patients of mine. 
His nephew had been brought to my dispensary 
on a native cot, borne by four men, in 1869, in 
what seemed a dying condition. A severe surgi- 
cal operation was the only thing that could save 
his life. The operation was performed ; the young 
man recovered. For two weeks, while they were 
there, they and the young man's mother listened 
attentively to the daily reading of the Word and 
preaching and prayer in the hospital. On return- 
ing to their village they took with them Gospels 
and tracts, saying that they would never worship 
their old gods again, and they wanted these books 



136 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

for themselves and their neighbors to read, that 
they might learn to worship our God. We had 
meantime lost sight of them, and they now re- 
ported that all of their little hamlet were ready 
to embrace Christianity. Their village is five and 
a half miles from our present camp. 

/' This morning at four o'clock my native help- 
ers started for that village. Feeling too weak from 
yesterday's fever to walk with them, I started 
somewhat later and went on horseback. As I 
was passing a village about half-way, riding rap- 
idly to overtake the native helpers, the village 
magistrate came running out and begged me to 
stop and see a man suffering intensely from a 
deep-seated abscess in the sole of his foot. I did 
so, and opened the abscess with a pocket instru- 
ment, gave directions for poulticing, told him to 
send a man to my tent for medicines, and went 
on. On arriving at the little hamlet of Nalapora- 
palle I recognized my two old friends at once, and 
they seemed very glad to see me. After a very 
interesting talk with the people, ali the six fami- 
lies residing in this little hamlet gave in their 
names, renouncing heathenism and placing them- 
selves under Christian instruction. 

" On our way back we stopped to preach in a 
number of other villages, where much interest is 
manifested, and did not reach our tent until near 
noon, and it was i p.m. before we were able to 



A FRUITFUL PREACHING TOUR 137 

meet for our morning Sabbath service. Several 
new faces appeared in the congregation, and the 
deepest interest was maintained. 

*' Monday, August I2th. We went this morn- 
ing to the village a mile and a half north of this, 
Nalcheruvupalle, the people of which embraced 
Christianity several days since, had a service with 
the people, and succeeded in obtaining a good 
site for erecting a school-house church. While 
preaching to them the people of the high-caste 
village adjoining came and sat down and listened 
most attentively, and at the conclusion promised 
to send their children for instruction as soon as 
our Christian school was established. 

" The leading men of several of the surround- 
ing villages, including Brahmans, Rajpoots, gold- 
smiths, merchants, Sudras, have come to my tent 
to-day to have a talk with me about the * new re- 
ligion,' and to express their gratification that we 
were going to establish a Christian school here. 
Several, including the magistrate of this village, 
promise to send their sons. 

" Thus far we have received ten villages under 
Christian instruction. This is the movement of 
which I wrote you in February, 1869, that I was 
sure was coming. I have been watching for it, 
toiling for it, praying for it, and it has come, and 
I am almost overwhelmed with the greatness of 
the work that is thrust upon me. How can one 



138 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

missionary alone stand under such a load, precious 
though that load be ? * The harvest truly is great, 
but the laborers are few: pray ye therefore the 
Lord of the harvest, that He would send forth 
laborers into His harvest;' and not only pray, 
but oh, ye sworn followers of Christ in America, 
send forth your sons to gather in His glorious 
harvest." 



XII 

OUR VILLAGE CATHEDRAL 

Within a fortnight of the coming over to 
Christianity of the people of the Httle village of 
Timmapalle, we had secured a site, and our first 
village school-house church was going up before 
my eyes as I remained there in camp. 

The quarter of an acre we had purchased was 
located one hundred yards north of the northern- 
most house of the little hamlet, and my tent was 
pitched in the middle of the lot, between where 
the church and the house for the catechist were 
to be. In that I was holding meetings every even- 
ing for the instruction of the new converts, and 
during the day I was treating all patients who 
came in from surrounding villages, high caste or 
low caste. 

The people of this hamlet, who had now in a 
body embraced Christianity, were Malas, a low 
caste among the Telugus, but little higher than 
the Pariahs among the Tamils; but this did not 
prevent the highest castes of the region from com- 

139 



140 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

ing to my tent, pitched adjoining their hamlet, for 
medical treatment or for religious conversation or 
discussion. 

The new converts had promised to contribute 
their labor toward the erection of a church, and 
to supply the material for the roof, several high- 
caste landholders of the surrounding villages hav- 
ing ao^reed each to furnish one beam. 

As soon as the land was secured the foundation 
for the church was staked out, forty by fifteen 
feet. The men, the new converts, came with their 
native pickaxes, with only one blade each and 
with a round point and very heavy, so that they 
could drive them into the stone-like subsoil, and 
with their shovels, with short handles put to them 
at right angles like a hoe, and began the ex- 
cavation. 

One span deep they came to the dense clay and 
gravel subsoil, almost as hard as stone. The women 
took their earthen water-pots — " pitchers " they 
are sometimes called in the Bible — on their heads 
and in single file marched down to the *' tank," or 
dammed pond where water is stored for irrigation, 
an eighth of a mile distant, and brought up at 
each trip four or five gallons of water apiece, and 
poured it into this excavation. The men, throw- 
ing in some of the earth they had dug out, 
tramped it up with their bare feet into a thick clay. 

Ten feet away, along the border line of our land, 



OUR VILLAGE CATHEDRAL 141 

they dug a long trench three feet deep, pouring 
in water to soften it as they dug. The intensely 
hard subsoil was mixed with the softer earth they 
had dug in the foundation, and worked up by feet 
and hands into rough cubes of half a cubic foot 
each, and put out upon the ground in the sun to 
bake, like the adobe of New Mexico. The hot 
sun baked them hard enough in a day or two to 
build into the foundation and wall, and the walls 
began to rise. 

In each end was a doorway four feet wide. 
When the walls were built up with these dried 
bricks of clay and gravel, or adobe, two and a 
half feet high, openings two and a half feet wide 
were left for windows. Rough frames for these 
windows were made by the village plow-maker, 
for here they all still use wooden plows like those 
used by Abraham to plow his fields at Beersheba, 
and the plow-makers are accustomed to do the 
rough house-carpentering as well. These frames 
had male bamboos, that is, bamboos with no holes 
in them and stronger, framed in them perpen- 
dicularly four inches apart for bars. 

The windows would have no glass nor Venetian 
blinds nor shutters of any kind, and these bars 
were necessary for protection, as otherwise hyenas 
or jackals or other animals prowling around at 
night jump in and do damage. I have known of 
a hyena springing into the unbarred window of a 



142 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

native house, in a warm night when the shutters 
were open, and seizing the infant from its sleep- 
ing mother's breast, spring out again anci bound 
off with the screaming child to the jungle, in spite 
of anything the aroused household could do. 

A yoke of buffaloes with solid, wooden- wheeled 
cart came driving in one morning with the prom- 
ised beam from one landholder. It was the trunk 
of a cocoanut-tree. Another brought a beam of 
better wood from a dismantled mill for grinding 
and pressing sugar-cane, much of which is grown 
in that region, and others followed. 

After laying a few feet in height of the adobe 
walls, the men would leave them for a couple of 
days to dry, and go to the jungle forests a few 
miles away, and with their crooked bill-hook axes 
cut and bring in on their heads saplings for the 
rafters. Others went to the aloe hedges along the 
outside of the rice-fields and cut and brought in 
the leaves, a yard tall, from the outside of the 
hedges, and with stones pounded out the pulp and 
secured the long fibers for lashing the wattles on 
the rafters before putting on the thatch, the larger 
rafters being tied on with rope made from the 
fiber of the cocoanut husk ; while the women 
went to the adjacent rocky hills and cut the long, 
wiry mountain grass and brought it in large, long 
bundles on their heads for thatch. 

When the walls were completed, eight feet 



OUR VILLAGE CATHEDRAL 143 

high, flat granite slabs were brought, quarried 
from the hillside by building a fire over the re- 
quired surface, and pouring on cold water when 
the rock was heated, and so blistering off the 
slabs. One of these was placed on top of the 
adobe wall where each transverse beam was to 
rest, to give stability and to keep the white ants, 
which would bore up through the dried bricks, 
from boring on up into the timbers and destroy- 
ing the roof. 

On the center of these transverse beams seven- 
foot uprights were erected, and on those the ridge- 
pole was secured. The rafters were tied to this 
and to wall-plates, placed, however, on the trans- 
verse beams a foot outside of the walls, to make 
wide eaves, that would protect the clay walls 
from the drenching rains during the monsoon. 
The wattles were tied on these with the aloe fiber. 
The women brought up more water and thoroughly 
moistened the long mountain grass so that it would 
pack more compactly in thatching, one or two 
practised hands tied on the thatch as it was tossed 
up to them in small bundles, and the roof was 
complete. 

We had wanted to call in men of the hereditary 
caste of well- and tank-diggers and wall-builders, 
as there was so much work in the building of the 
walls ; but they would not come unless we would 
Jet theni sacrifice to their gods on the spot a sheep 



144 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

or a kid, or at least a fowl, so that their gods 
would protect them from accident during the 
building, which, of course, we would not allow. 

The walls and roof were at last ready. The 
plow-maker shaped the rough mango planks we 
had bought into double doors for the front and 
rear. The women made a rough mortar, Hindu 
fashion, from clay and sand and cow dung mixed, 
and, with the palms of their hands for trowels, 
plastered the adobe walls within and without, and 
then whitewashed them, using brushes made from 
the stems of date-tree leaves. The men brought 
in more of the moist clay gravel from the trench, 
and laying it a span deep over the ground inside 
the walls, pounded it down with rammers made 
from the palmyra-tree, and made a smooth kind 
of concrete floor ; and then the women brought, 
in little baskets on their heads, clean- washed sand 
from the bed of the adjacent stream, and spread 
it half an inch thick over the floor for a carpet. 

A camp-table for pulpit and a chair for the 
preacher were placed in it, and our new cathedral 
was complete. 

This was the first of the villages that had come 
over, and quite central ; so we erected here the 
largest and most costly of all our village build- 
ings, — larger than needed for this little hamlet, — 
that we might here hold our special services and 
our quarterly meetings, and here administer the 



OUR VILLAGE CATHEDRAL ■ 145 

Lord's Supper for all this circle. So this is " our 
cathedral." 

On the Sunday morning the head of each family 
comes, bringing rolled up a date mat or a coarse 
black goat's-hair blanket rug, and spreads it down 
on the sand for himself and sons to sit on ; this is 
their ''pew"; while the wife brings another and 
places it on the other side of the church for her- 
self and daughters and the women of her house 
to occupy; for in these Httle village churches, ac- 
cording to the custom of the country, the men must 
sit on one side and the women apart on the other. 
In this building during the week our day-school 
IS held. The old-time custom of the country re- 
quires village schools to begin at sunrise and, with 
an hour intermission at noon, close when it is too 
dark longer to see the books. We compromised 
the matter by having school from 7 a.m. to 12, 
and from i to 5 p.m. 

^ The alphabet class requires no text-books ; they 
sit on the sanded floor, and watching the teacher 
make a letter in the sand with his finger, they 
make it after him, thus learning reading and writ- 
ing at the same time. 

Every evening this new church is used for 
"village prayers"; for the unlearned villagers, 
unable most of them to conduct '' family prayers "' 
in their own houses, come together here for even- 
ing worship. 



146 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

The catechist, or the schoolmaster in villages 
where there is no catechist, makes a good deal of 
the evening prayers. Besides reading and ex- 
pounding a chapter in the Bible and offering 
prayer, concluding with the Lord's Prayer, in 
which all the people join, he drills old and young 
in the catechism, and teaches them to sing the 
beautiful Telugu Christian lyrics, and right heart- 
ily do they sing. 

Some months after the erection of this our 
cathedral, we held in it a special service, that 
comes lovingly to my memory. A meeting of our 
Telugu Bible Revision Committee, of which I was 
chairman, was being held at Madanapalle, at 
which delegates were present for several weeks 
from the different missionary societies laboring in 
the Telugu country. One Saturday evening sev- 
eral of us went out twenty miles to Timmapalle 
for the Sabbath service. The people of the adja- 
cent villages had been invited to gather there. 

In the early morning they began to arrive, and 
more and more came. We missionaries were 
seated in camp-chairs against the rear wall, and 
the camp-table pulpit drawn up close to us to save 
room. Our native assistants were seated on a rug 
at our right. The people came In and were 
seated in rows across the building cross-legged, 
native fashion, and so close together that their 



OUR VILLAGE CATHEDRAL 147 

shoulders touched. The knees of the second row 
touched the backs of those in the front row, and 
thus the church was packed. The people were so 
compact that a rat could not have made its way 
from front to rear, and those who could not get 
in were listening from the outside through the 
open doors and windows. 

My English brother missionary of the Church 
of England took the morning service. He was a 
fine singer of Telugu lyrics, and when that whole 
congregation, of those who were one year ago 
worshipers of Vishnu and of idols, joined in 
hymning the praises of Jesus with reverent air 
and hearty voice, he seemed to be carried away 
by it into another land, and his earnest sermon 
of such spiritually uplifting power was an index 
of where his thoughts had been. 

The afternoon sermon was by my American 
Baptist colleague, and was a fit sequel to the ser- 
mon of the morning. The evening service was 
conducted by one of still another denomination, 
and was followed by earnest personal talks with 
the many who lingered for a further word. 

At midnight, as we were getting into our coach 
to return for our morning work at Madanapalle, 
my English Episcopal friend said to me, " I have 
heard more artistic singing of the praises of Im- 
rnanuel in some of the famed churches of my dear 



148 Ihl THE TIGER JUNGLE 

old England, but none that I believe went straight- 
er to the throne of God or sounded more sweet 
to our Redeemer. I have greatly enjoyed many 
services in England's grand cathedrals, but never 
so much as these of to-day among the newly re- 
deemed ones in this your village cathedral." 



XIII 

THE BUILDING AND OPENING OF A FREE 
READING-ROOM AT MADANAPALLE 

For a long time we had tried in vain to obtain 
the slightest foothold within the thickly built 
native town of Madanapalle. The Telugus are 
always courteous and kind to strangers, and so 
long as we remained outside of the town they were 
friendly and helpful. The very few European 
houses so far built here are located on the oppo- 
site side from the town of a little river or creek, 
which is dry except during the early and the late 
rainy seasons. Our house is built here, and our 
temporary mud- wall and thatched- roof place of 
worship was of necessity placed here also, as we 
could not get a place nearer the people. 

I had long ago determined to secure, if possi- 
ble, by purchase or for rent, one of the town 
bazaars or small stores, or to buy one of the very 
few vacant lots and build and open a free read- 
ing-room, which should be well stocked with 
vernacular and English newspapers, gazettes, 

149 



150 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

magazines, and books, and to use that for even- 
ing preaching one day in the week, so as to get 
hold of the educated portion of the non-Christian 
community, to whom we had not thus far gained 
as close access as we had desired. 

My every effort had been foiled. When in 
passing through the streets I found that a bazaar 
or store had been vacated, and learned that its 
owners were in the habit of renting it, I would 
quietly enter into negotiations to rent it. Noth- 
ing is done by Hindus without due, or rather un- 
due, deliberation, and although I would accede 
to the owner's terms, there must be further delay 
before the papers were drawn out. The other 
Hindus would learn of it and bring such pressure 
to bear on the owner that he would back out of 
his not yet signed contract. 

I ofTered double rent, but no owner dared to 
let me have a place. A bazaar was for sale ; I 
learned the price and tendered the money ; it 
was refused. The owner came secretly to see me, 
saying that he would be glad to sell it to me, but 
that all his caste people would boycott him if he 
did. I oflfered him double the price ; no, he would 
be turned out of his caste if he let me have it. 

At last, in 1870, my opportunity came. A 
corner lot on one of the main streets, opposite the 
post-office, had been for years in Htigation. The 
old building on it had tumbled down. It was one 



FREE READING-ROOM AT MADANAPALLE 151 

of the best sites in the whole town for a reading- 
room and evangelistic hall. The case in the chief 
district court eighty miles away was decided, and 
a decree was issued ordering the lot, a small one, to 
be sold bypublic auction, and the proceeds divided 
in a certain way between the contending heirs. 

Even now I could not appear openly as a pur- 
chaser, nor could any of our native Christians nor 
any one known to be in my employ bid openly 
on it, or a combination would be formed and it 
would be run up to twenty times its value to pre- 
vent our getting a footing in the streets of the 
town. 

There was a young Brahman assistant in the 
English magistrate's office now living in town, who 
had attracted my attention as a man of intelli- 
gence, of excellent character, and of indepen- 
dence. I invited him to come to my house and 
see me, and explained to him my plans for open- 
ing a free reading-room ; told what Telugu, Tamil, 
Kanarese, Marathi, Hindustani, and English peri- 
odicals, and what government gazettes, and what 
maps, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and books of 
history, travel, and science I proposed to put in 
for the free use of all who chose to make that 
their literary center, with ample conveniences for 
writing and for study. He became very much 
interested in the project and said it would be an 
unspeakable boon to the town. 



152 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

I told him I would do all this if he had the 
courage to go to the auction and bid in that cor- 
ner lot in his own name, pay for it on the spot 
with money I would put in his hands for the pur- 
pose, have the papers made out there by the court 
officers in his own name to avoid interference, and 
then transfer the title to me and have the transac- 
tion completed beyond recall before any one sus- 
pected what he bought the lot for, so that they 
would see that interference would be in vain and 
would not trouble him so much. I told him that 
probably all his coreligionists would curse him at 
first, but that within two months after the read- 
ing-room was opened, and they experienced its 
advantages, they would bless him still more heart- 
ily and lastingly, and that it all depended now on 
whether he had backbone enough to undertake 
the matter, and pledged that I would do all in my 
power to shield him from serious abuse. 

He sat for a few moments in deep thought, and 
then, straightening himself up, he said, with de- 
termination manifest in every feature, '* Yes, sir, 
I will do it ; you shall have the deeds of that lot 
in your hands before midnight." 

I placed in his hands double the highest sum 
we thought the lot would bring, so that he need 
not have to send to me for more and so reveal the 
source of his supply. The sale was to take place 
at noon. The day was one of prayer on the part 



FREE READING-ROOM AT MADANAPALLE 153 

of my three native assistants, to whom alone I had 
revealed my scheme, and myself, that there might 
be no slip, but that the gospel might thus gain a 
home within the busy town. 

As soon as it was dark that evening my Brah- 
man friend appeared with face radiant, if a little 
anxious, saying, '* I have succeeded. Here is the 
deed for the land in your name, and here is the 
certificate from the registrar that the deed has 
been registered ; for he is a friend of mine, and 
stopped after office hours to register it himself 
after his clerks had gone. He is pledged to 
secrecy, and no one outside suspects what the lot 
has been purchased for, and here is the balance 
of the money you placed in my hands. You will 
erect and open the reading-room quickly, will you 
not ? so that the period of abuse from my coreli- 
gionists may be as brief as possible." 

I thanked him heartily, told him I would en- 
deavor to see that he never regretted the bold 
stand he had taken, and that he would himself 
be surprised to see the prompt developments. 

I had building going on at the hospital with a 
building maistry^ or overseer, and a corps of 
masons, carpenters, and coolies, whom I could 
transfer at once to another work if I saw fit. 
Word had come to me at three o'clock that the 
lot had been knocked down to my friend as the 
highest bidder, and I -had lost no time in making 



154 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

my arrangements. I had sent for a stone con- 
tractor whom I employed, and he had engaged to 
have thirty cart-loads of foundation stone stand- 
ing in carts at my gate at daylight the next morn- 
ing, to be dumped wherever my maistry should 
tell him, and to deliver thirty more during the 
day. The brick contractor had made a similar 
contract, and the lime contractor another. My 
maistry had agreed with his whole staff of work- 
men to be on hand at the first dawn of day and 
work right through for a double day's pay; and 
before I retired that night my plans were all com- 
pleted and arrangements all made for a rapid 
stroke. 

At day- dawn the whole force met at the hos- 
pital and marched down quietly into the town, 
with a few cart-loads of mortar already mixed; 
the excavation at one corner of the front wall was 
rapidly made by twenty coolies; the thirty cart- 
loads of stone were driven there and unloaded, 
and as the sun peeped over the horizon the masons 
were laying the stones for the corner. The bricks 
and mortar came, and before the people of the 
town were astir six feet in length of the founda- 
tion had been completed and several courses of 
bricks had been laid on that, while the bottom 
courses of stone had been laid across the whole 
front and the excavations for the side walls were 
rapidly going on. 



FREE READING-ROOM AT MADANAPALLE 155 

The people rubbed their eyes and gazed in 
astonishment. What this meant no one could 
divine. They knew that the Brahman had bought 
the lot the preceding afternoon and at first sup- 
posed that he was rapidly building a house. The 
maistry refused to say anything ; the busy swarm 
of workmen did not know. 

By ten o'clock the front walls were two feet 
high, and then I appeared upon the scene, for I 
had not been seen there after the sun had risen, 
and told the gathering spectators what I proposed 
to put there, and that when the reading-room was 
opened they themselves would be very glad that 
they had been outwitted ; that there was no pos- 
sible way of stopping me now, for I would carry 
it through at any cost; that I held a registered 
deed of the lot in my hand, and the EngHsh chief 
magistrate had promised to see that I was not 
molested. After a little consultation among 
themselves they agreed to refrain from hopeless 
interference and wait and see what this new 
reading-room would be. 

Our English friends, officials in the judicial, 
revenue, engineering, and police departments who 
had themselves or their families received medical 
treatment from me, came forward and liberally 
contributed the funds for this new undertaking, 
and in an incredibly short time for India the 
building of one story, with flat masonry roof that 



156 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

could not be burned, was completed and ready to 
enter. 

It stands on a street corner. The lot is only- 
twenty feet wide by forty long. In the front is 
one wide door, and at the side wide windows only 
four or five feet apart, and a veranda of five feet 
width on both streets, so that when doors and 
windows are all thrown wide open those in the 
verandas can hear a speaker as well as those in- 
side, and most of them can see him. 

The room is matted with grass mats, and in the 
center is a writing-table with inkstands and writ- 
ing materials always ready. Arranged along the 
sides are narrow tables with newspapers in the 
different languages, magazines, and government 
gazettes on them, together with a copy of the 
Bible in each of the seven languages more or less 
read here. 

At the farther end are two glass-door book- 
cases ; the one filled with dictionaries in the dif- 
ferent languages, encyclopedias, and books for 
reading, including works on history, travels, 
poetry, morals, and science, the most of them 
being in English, but including all I could lay 
my hands on of an improving nature in Telugu, 
Tamil, Kanarese, with a few in Hindustani, 
Marathi, and Sanskrit. These are free to any 
one to take and read when he pleases. 

The other bookcase is filled with Scriptures, 



FREE READING-ROOM AT MADANAPALLE 157 

tracts, school-books, and Christian literature in 
the various languages, for sale. A supply of 
stationery also, and all requisites for school use, 
are kept ; and by supplying Christian school-books 
here at cost, or less, we are introducing them into 
many a non-Christian school of this region in place 
of their more expensive school-books and cumber- 
some olas, or palm-leaf manuscript school-books 
now in use. 

This reading-room is opened daily, excepting 
Sundays, at 2 P.M., and kept open until 9 P.M. ; 
and as the bright light shines out on to two streets 
it attracts many to come and sit and read who 
would otherwise sit on their verandas in idle talk 
or gossip. 

On Wednesday evening of each week we have 
a Bible lecture here. It is in Telugu and is de- 
signed to lead the thinking non- Christians to a 
more intelligent appreciation of the beauties and 
stores of wisdom contained in God's revealed 
Word, and to more of a love for and reverence of 
that Book of books. I try to make the lecture as 
interesting as I can, and never allow myself to ex- 
ceed half an hour, so as not to weary them. 

Ten minutes before the time appointed for the 
lecture our native assistants go there and com- 
mence singing some of their beautiful Christian 
songs in Telugu melodies. This is the signal for 
assembling, so that when I get there I always find 



158 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

both the building and the veranda already filled. 
I then read the passages I have selected from the 
Telugu Bible and lecture from it, always closing 
with a short prayer for the divine blessing on the 
words spoken. 

I have thus far never once been interrupted by 
talking or unseemly conduct, and the most pro- 
found silence is observed during the prayer. The 
audience has averaged over one hundred and fifty 
each Wednesday evening thus far, and we cannot 
help feeling that good is being done. 

As soon as the building was completed and 
furnished, even before the walls were fully dry, 
we sent around a notice to the principal native 
gentlemen of the place, telling them that on a 
certain evening the new reading-room would be 
opened and its purposes and rules explained, and 
inviting all to be present. 

A number of English gentlemen, who had 
given us liberal pecuniary aid in the erection of 
the building, now gave us their countenance and 
assistance in the opening of it, the joint magis- 
trate of the district making an address in English, 
which was interpreted for those who understood 
only Telugu by the Brahman interpreter of his 
court. The chief officer of the revenue settlement 
of the district, an EngHsh gentleman, made an 
address in Telugu ; this was followed by a neat 
address from my Brahnian friend^ telling of the 



FREE READING-ROOM AT MADANAPALLE 159 

profit which he beheved this reading-room would 
be to himself and them all, and telling them why- 
he had assisted me in the purchase of the lot. 

An address in Telugu was also made by my- 
self, in which I told the people that, while this 
was designed as a means of intellectual improve- 
ment, I did not wish to disguise the hope I enter- 
tained that it would prove also a means of spiritual 
improvement to many of them by bringing them 
to the feet of Him who is the Author and Giver 
of spiritual Hfe, even Him who is revealed in the 
Christian Scriptures; and urged them to search 
the Scriptures which they would find, each in his 
own language, upon the tables, and see whether 
there was nothing in them worthy of their sincere 
acceptance. The building and verandas were 
packed with attentive listeners, and many stood 
in the street within hearing, unable to get into 
even the veranda. 

Our record shows that the number who avail 
themselves of the privileges of the reading-room 
has thus far averaged not less than ninety a day. 
Some come just to look at the Madras daily news- 
papers or the government gazettes, others to read 
historical works, others to consult the dictionaries, 
atlases, and books of reference, while many, after 
finishing the work for which they came, will 
quietly take up and read a copy of the Bible, and 
often purchase Scriptures or portions of Scripture 



IGO IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

in their own languages or in English, to take away 
and examine at their own houses. Scarcely a day 
passes without more or less tracts or Scriptures 
being sold. 

A very singular address by a Brahman gentle- 
man has just been made in the reading-room, of 
which I must give a report in the next chapter. 



XIV 

A BRAHMAN ON THE BIBLE 

An incident occurred this (Wednesday) even- 
ing in our new reading-room, which has made a 
profound impression on my mind. 

On each Wednesday evening we have here a 
lecture on the Bible, designed for educated non- 
Christian audiences. A parable, a miracle, a biog- 
raphy, a sermon of Christ, a historical account, 
as of the creation, the deluge, Joseph in Egypt, 
the exodus, a prophecy of the Old Testament and 
its fulfilment in the New, is taken up and illus- 
trated. While it is endeavored to make the lec- 
ture attractive as a literary treat, the bearing of 
the subject on the gospel of Jesus Christ and His 
salvation is never lost sight of. This evening my 
subject was, *' The law of the Lord is perfect," 
showing the sufficiency of the Christian Scrip- 
tures, but the insufficiency of the Hindu Vedas, 
to make the soul of sinful man at peace with holy 
God. 

At the close of the lecture, which was atten- 

161 



162 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

lively listened to by an audience of one hundred 
and eighty, composed of Brahmans, merchants, 
farmers, artisans, officials, and students, and which 
I concluded with a short prayer, as I took my hat 
to come away, a Brahman, one of the best edu- 
cated in the place, arose and politely asked per- 
mission to say a few words. I, of course, as 
politely assented and took my seat again, think- 
ing that he probably was designing to attack the 
position that I had taken, and I said to myself, " I 
shall have a sharp discussion with this man, for 
he is one of the most learned men in the place and 
a ready speaker; but I have reserve ammunition 
in abundance on this topic, which I must bring 
forward and stand to my guns." 

To my surprise, however, in a neat address of 
ten or fifteen minutes, couched in choice and 
ornate language and with apt illustrations, he 
urged upon his fellow-citizens the importance of 
availing themselves of the advantages offered for 
their intellectual and moral advancement by this 
reading-room, and in conclusion gave the follow- 
ing remarkable testimony to the Christian Scrip- 
tures. He spoke in Telugu, but it made such an 
impression on my mind that I have come home 
and written it off in as accurate a translation as 
possible into English. It was as follows : 

" Behold that mango-tree on yonder roadside ! 
Its fruit is approaching to ripeness. Bears it that 



A BRAHMAN ON THE BIBLE 163 

fruit for itself or for its own profit? From the 
moment the first ripe fruits turn their yellow sides 
toward the morning sun until the last mango is 
pelted off, it is assailed with showers of sticks and 
stones from boys and men and every passer-by, 
until it stands bereft of leaves, with branches 
knocked off, bleeding from many a broken twig ; 
and piles of stone underneath, and clubs and 
sticks lodged in its boughs, are the only trophies 
of its joyous crop of fruit. Is it discouraged? 
Does it cease to bear fruit? Does it say, * If I 
am barren no one will pelt me and I shall live in 
peace ' ? Not at all. The next season the bud- 
ding leaves, the beauteous flowers, the tender 
fruit, again appear. Again it is pelted and broken 
and wounded, but goes on bearing, and chil- 
dren's children pelt its branches and enjoy its 
fruit. 

*' That is a type of these missionaries. I have 
watched them well and have seen what they are. 
What do they come to this country for? What 
tempts them to leave their parents, friends, and 
country and come to this, to them an unhealthy, 
cHmate? Is it for gain or for profit that they 
come ? Some of us country clerks in government 
offices receive more salary than they. Is it for 
the sake of an easy life ? See how they work, and 
then tell me. No; they seek, like the mango- 
tree, to bear fruit for the benefit of others, and 



164 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

this, too, though treated with contumely and 
abuse from those they are benefiting. 

'' Now look at this missionary ! He came here 
a few years ago, leaving all and seeking only our 
good. He has met with cold looks and suspicious 
glances, and was shunned, avoided, and maligned. 
He sought to talk with us of what he told us was 
the matter of most importance in heaven or earth, 
and we would not listen ; but he was not discour- 
aged. He started a dispensary, and we said, * Let 
the Pariahs take his medicines ; we won't;' but in 
the times of our sickness and distress and fear we 
had to go to him, and he heard us. We com- 
plained if he walked through our Brahman streets ; 
but ere long, when our wives and daughters were 
in sickness and anguish, we went and begged him 
to come even into our inner apartments, and he 
came, and our wives and our daughters now smile 
upon us in health. Has he made any money by 
it? Even the cost of the medicines has not been 
returned to him. 

" And now, in spite of our opposition, he has 
bought this site, and built this beautiful room, 
and furnished it with the choicest of lore in many 
languages, and put in it newspapers and periodi- 
cals, which were inaccessible to us before, but 
which help us now to keep up with the world 
around us and understand passing events ; and he 
has placed here tables to write on, and chairs to 



A BRAHMAN ON THE BIBLE 165 

sit on, and lamps for us to read and write by in 
the evening ; and what does he get for all this ? 
Does he make money by this free reading-room? 
Why, we don't even pay for the lamp-oil consumed 
by night as we read. 

'^ Now, what is it makes him do all this for us ? 
It is his Bible. I have looked into it a good deal 
at one time and another, in the different languages 
I chance to know. It is just the same in all lan- 
guages — the Bible. There is nothing to compare 
with it in all our sacred books for goodness and 
purity and holiness and love and for motives of 
action. 

** Where did the English-speaking people get 
all their intelligence and energy and cleverness 
and power ? It is their Bible that gives it to them. 
And now they bring it to us and say, ' This is 
what raised us; take it and raise yourselves.' 
They do not force it upon us, as the Moham- 
medans did with their Koran, but they bring it in 
love, and translate it into our languages, and lay 
it before us and say, ' Look at it, read it, examine 
it, and see if it is not good.' Of one thing I am 
convinced : do what we will, oppose it as we may, 
it is the Christians' Bible that will, sooner or later, 
work the regeneration of this land." 

I could not but be surprised at this testimony 
thus borne. How far the speaker was sincere I 
cannot tell ; he had every appearance of a man 



166 IN THE TIGER JUNGL^ 

speaking his earnest convictions. Some three 
years ago I had attended in his zenana his second 
wife, a beautiful girl, through a dangerous illness, 
and I knew that he felt very grateful ; but I was 
not prepared to see him come out before such an 
audience with such testimony to the power and 
excellency of the Bible. My earnest prayer is 
that not only his intellect may be convinced, but 
that his heart may be reached by the Holy Spirit, 
and that he and many like him may soon become 
earnest followers of Jesus the Christ. 



XV 

THE VILLAGE MAGISTRATE'S DEATH 

At the Wednesday evening biblical lectures for 
non-Christians at our free reading-room there was 
one countenance that we always expected to see. 

The grama reddi, or village magistrate, Musa- 
lappa by name, always came early and took his 
seat by the second window on the right from the 
speaker's desk. He listened with apparent plea- 
sure to the preliminary gospel song service, and 
when the speaker rose to read from the Christians* 
Bible and to give a lecture on the passage read, 
be it a parable, a miracle, a history, a prophecy, 
a sermon of our Lord, the fixedness of his atten- 
tion always attracted the notice of the speaker, 
and his reverent mien during the concluding 
prayer made one feel that he was silently joining 
in its petitions. 

He was a cousin of the man whose hand and 
arm had been so fearfully crushed under the wheel 
of the idol-car shortly after we located at Madana- 
palle, as they were drawing it in its annual outing 

167 



168 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

late at night. He was one of those who ran to 
my house and waked me and begged me to come 
and see if I could save the man's life, for he was 
dying with nervous shock and loss of blood. The 
man's life was saved ; the ten fractures in his 
fingers, hand, and forearm were set and united, 
so that he again had the use of his right hand ; and 
neither he nor his brothers or cousins ever joined 
again in those heathen festivities, and some of 
them were often seen at our Sabbath services in 
church. 

Musalappa was one of them. When the read- 
ing-room was opened and the weekly biblical 
lectures for non- Christians were begun, he seemed 
to be glad to have a chance to listen to Christian 
teaching without mingling in a Christian congre- 
gation and drawing on himself the adverse criti- 
cism of his coreligionists. 

He was a very quiet, sedate, reticent man, 
whose character was respected by all. His atten- 
tive, earnest countenance, both in our church on 
his occasional attendance there and weekly at the 
reading-room, made me feel that the truth was 
gaining an entrance to his mind and heart. He 
seemed to avoid giving me any chance to speak 
to him personally, and I was content to let him 
continue to drink in the truth weekly at our ser- 
vices, fearing that he would be driven away if I 
personally pressed the truth home. 



THE VILLAGE MAGISTRATE'S DEATH 169 

A year had passed from the opening of the 
reading-room. In August of last year, 187 1, 
there was an epidemic of cholera, and of small- 
pox at the same time, and a number of cases of 
typhoid fever in the town. My assistant in the 
hospital was absent on a vacation and I was 
driven with work beyond measure. 

One morning, as I was sitting at the dispens- 
ing-table in the hospital, Musalappa came in and 
sank upon a seat exhausted. I saw that he was 
very ill and went to him at once. He said he 
had been very sick for a week or more ; that he 
had asked his brothers — for they and their fami- 
lies all lived together in one house as one family 
— to ask me to come and treat him, or to bring 
him to the hospital in a coach or palanquin, but 
they had absolutely refused and called in native 
doctors; that he was sure he was fast getting 
much worse ; and that that morning, when they 
were all out of the house, he had got up and, 
unnoticed, stolen away on foot to the hospital for 
me to prescribe for him, I did all that could be 
done, giving him medicines for the day and night, 
and sent him home in a conveyance, promising to 
come the next morning to his house and see him. 

I was quite at a loss to account for his family 
so objecting to his coming to me for treatment, 
as many of them have been to me for treatment 
at different times. 



170 77^ THE TICER JUNGLE 

The next morning and daily I went to see him, 
though I was so driven with work that I could 
go but once each day and then make but a very 
brief visit. A crowd gathered around the mo- 
ment I went into his room every time I called, 
and, as I now see, seemed to wish to prevent my 
talking with him any more than to prescribe. I 
could not but notice that there was an unusual 
commotion about the house, which I could not 
explain. It was typhoid fever, and he died in 
spite of all that could at that late stage be done 
for him. 

One of his cousins now tells me that during his 
sickness he was talking continually of Jesus Christ 
and of Christianity, saying that it was true and 
they must embrace it; and I now think that it 
was their fear that he would openly embrace 
Christianity before his death, and bring a stigma 
on them, that made them keep him so long from 
coming to me, and so guarded when I was 
present. 

I spoke to him generally on the subject of 
death and of Him whom alone we could trust in 
such an hour, but did not press it home so per- 
sonally as I would had I then suspected what I 
now believe to be the fact. 

When I spoke to him of Christ they prevented 
his replying, as I now recall to mind. His cousin 
now tells me that during the night before he 



THB VILLAGE MAGISTRATE'S DEATH 171 

died, after incoherent talking of Jesus and His 
salvation for some time, he suddenly rose to a 
sitting posture in bed and called out with a clear 
voice, *' The glory of Jesus Christ is filling the 
whole worldy and we must all bow before it. He 
is the divine Redeemer.'' 

And so he died. I cannot tell certainly 
whether he was one of the spiritual fruits of the 
reading-room, whether to count him among 
Christ's trophies, or not; but I rejoice unspeak- 
ably that " the Lord knoweth them that are His." 
He will not overlook any of His jewels. 

I shall look for him when, through the blood 
of that Jesus, I am permitted to join the throng 
of the redeemed, for I trust he will be there. 



XVI 

NARASAPPA'S MOTHER; OR, CHRIST'S HIDDEN 

ONES 

Yes, I think we do sometimes get glimpses of 
some of Christ's hidden ones, and believe that 
Narasappa's mother was one of them. 

It was in July, 1872, that my tent was pitched 
in yonder mango grove, a mile from this place, 
Gollapalle, where I am now encamped. I had 
my dispensary tent and was endeavoring to imi- 
tate my Master, " going about all the cities and 
villages, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, 
and healing every sickness and every disease 
among the people " as far as possible, with the 
use of remedies and by the blessing of God upon 
them. 

At sunrise every morning I went out to preach 
in some adjacent village, returning by eight 
o'clock to find my tent surrounded by patients 
waiting for treatment. We first preached to 
them that "gospel of the kingdom" and then 
treated their diseases. 

172 



CHRIST'S HIDDEN ONES 173 

One morning my attention was attracted to a 
nice old Brahman lady, who had brought a little 
child, her grandson, for treatment. I noticed her 
listening very earnestly to the preaching. My 
heart was drawn out toward her. I treated the 
child, and told her to bring him again the next 
day. She did, and for several mornings after. 
She was always on hand to hear the preaching. 
I learned that she was from this village and that 
she was the mother of Narasappa, one of the 
Brahman village officials. The child recovered, 
and I lost sight of her for the time. 

That was the year when the solid ranks of 
heathenism here began to break and the people 
of a number of villages of the working classes 
came out and embraced Christianity. Among 
others the Mala weavers of a hamlet adjacent to 
this village asked to be taken under instruction, 
giving up all their idols. We received them. 

We wanted land to build a thatched school- 
house church upon. One of the Brahman vil- 
lage officials helped us to get it. I knew not 
why, but afterward learned that he was the son 
of my old lady friend. A catechist with a very 
estimable wife was placed there. Their house 
was midway between the caste village and the 
Malas' houses. This old lady was one of the first 
to befriend them. Through her influence they 
were allowed to draw water at the village caste 



174 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

well, and received many other kindnesses through 
her friendship. She always came and listened 
earnestly to the preaching when I came to the 
village. 

I was taken sick and had to go to America. 
For three years this region was without a mis- 
sionary. The native assistants were one after 
another drafted off to meet pressing calls in the 
Tamil field of our mission. This place was left 
without a mission helper. The famine came with 
its fearful desolation. The poor Mala weavers 
were scattered in search of work and food. After 
my return to India, in 1878, I came here to rake 
over the ashes and see if there was any fire left. 
I found enough to make me rejoice, and reoccu- 
pied the station. 

I saw the Brahman official who had been kind 
to us, and who seemed delighted at our return. 
I asked for his mother; she had died during the 
famine, but he brought the Httle boy whom I had 
treated to see me. I could not ask of him the 
questions I wished to ask about his mother, but 
after some months I saw the catechist who had 
occupied the station and to whose wife the old 
Brahmanee had been such a friend. His eyes 
were moist as he told me what had transpired 
with reference to the old lady after I went to 
America. 

She had continued her friendliness to them 



CHRIST'S HIDDEN ONES 175 

Openly, and used secretly to come to their house 
by night to talk of Christ and His salvation. 
Often, he tells me, late in the evening, as they 
were about to retire and the streets were deserted 
for the night, they would hear a gentle knock at 
their door ; on going to open it, they would find 
their Brahman friend. 

She would slip quietly in, close the door, and 
say, " Now tell me some more of Jesus;" and as 
they finished for the night, " Oh, I do believe in 
Him, but my Brahman son would kill me if I 
should break caste and join you Christians openly ; 
or if he did not, it would ruin him, for the other 
Brahmans would cast him out. I can't come out 
openly and embrace Christ as my Saviour, but 
you must let me come very often and hear you 
talk about Him, for I do believe in Him." 

When that catechist and his wife removed from 
the place the secret parting was a very affecting 
one. '' For who will tell me more of the Lord of 
life?" was the plaint of the dear old Brahman 
lady. Before my return and before the village 
had again been occupied by a mission helper she 
had been called away ; but our Jesus, He who 
bore our griefs, He who was tempted like as we 
are, knew all about her, all her struggles, and 
how terrible are the bonds of caste, which she 
could not in her widowed old age summon cour- 
age to break. I think of her whenever I come 



176 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

to this village as perhaps one of the fruits of our 
work here, and I look forward to the time when, 
among those arrayed in white robes, I may find 
her and learn that she was indeed, while in this 
hard and sinful world, one of Chris fs hidden ones. 



XVII 

AN AUDIENCE OF MONKEYS 

The most singular audience that I ever saw 
gathered to listen to preaching was an audience 
of monkeys. 

When I first commenced work in the region 
which I have now occupied for more than thirty 
years, I asked two fellow-missionaries to join me 
in a preaching tour in the adjacent taluk, or 
county. We first went with three native assis- 
tants to the taluk town, or county-seat. Our 
tents were pitched in a grove adjoining the town. 
We usually on our tours went two and two to 
preach in the villages, but, this being the taluk 
town and the first time of our preaching the gos- 
pel in that region, we went in a body into the 
native city. 

Walking through the cloth, spice, grain, and 
iron merchants' bazaar streets, and then through 
the goldsmiths* and silversmiths' street, around 
through the temple street, and then through the 
street of Brahman residences, to advertise our 

177 



178 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

presence and incite curiosity to know what we 
were about, we finally took our stand in the 
Brahman street and all joined in singing one of 
the beautiful Telugu Christian lyrics, and gath- 
ered an audience of interested listeners. 

We stood upon a little raised platform on one 
side of the street against the house walls. The 
houses were all of one story, joined together like 
a city block, with flat roofs and a low parapet 
along the front of the roof. One of our native 
assistants read a portion from the Gospels and 
another preached briefly ; then one of my fellow- 
missionaries followed, preaching more at length, 
while I watched the audience to study the coun- 
tenances of the people among whom I expected 
to work. 

I had noticed that behind the houses on the 
opposite side of the street there was a long row 
of trees growing in their back yards, the branches 
of which stretched out over the flat roofs. 

Chancing to raise my eyes, I noticed many 
branches of these trees beginning to bend down- 
ward toward the roofs, and saw the faces of some 
old jack-monkeys peering out through the foliage. 
Soon some of them jumped down and came for- 
ward to see what their " big brothers " in the 
street were about as they stood gazing so intently 
at these white men standing on the platform. 
Springing upon the parapet, they seated them- 



AN AUDIENCE OF MONKEYS 179 

selves with their hind feet hanging over in front, 
and gazing with fixedness at the preacher as they 
saw the people in the street doing. 

Other monkeys followed until there was a long 
row of them thus seated on the parapet. The 
late-comers I could see walking along behind the 
parapet, looking for a place wide enough to get 
a seat. Failing to find a place between two al- 
ready seated monkeys wide enough, they would 
put up their hands and, pushing each one side- 
wise, would seem to be saying, " Sit along a 
little, please, and give a fellow a seat," until the 
" bench " was crowded. 

The audience in the street, standing with their 
backs toward that row of houses, did not notice 
the monkeys, and so their attention was not dis- 
tracted by them ; the preacher went on with his 
sermon ; the monkeys sat demurely, listening as 
intently as the audience in the street. 

I had noticed that many mother monkeys had 
brought their babies to church with them. These 
Httle baby monkeys sat upon the thigh of the 
mother, while her hand was placed around them 
in a very human fashion; but the sermon was 
evidently too high for these little folks to com- 
prehend. Glancing up, I saw one of the little 
monkeys cautiously reach his hand around and, 
catching hold of another baby monkey's tail, give 
it a pull. The other little monkey struck back, 



180 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

but each mother monkey evidently disapproved 
of this levity in church, and each gave its own 
baby a box on the ears as though saying, " Sit 
still! Don't you know how to behave in 
church?" The Httle monkeys, thus repri- 
manded, turned the most solemn faces toward 
the preacher and seemed to listen intently to 
what he was saying. 

With the exception of a monkey now and then 
trying to catch a flea that was biting him in some 
tender spot, they thus sat demurely until the 
preacher finished his sermon, and until we had 
distributed Gospels and tracts among the audi- 
ence, and, bidding them a polite farewell, had 
started for our tents. 

Our *' celestial audience," seeing our '' terres- 
trial audience " dispersing, then, and not until 
then, left their seats and demurely walked back 
and sprang upon the branches again. There 
were no "monkey capers" as they went; they 
were as serious as a congregation leaving a 
church, and sat upon the branches in a medita- 
tive mood as though thinking over what they had 
heard the preacher say. And thus we left our 
unique monkey audience. 



XVIII 

THE STICK-TO-IT MISSIONARY 

I HAVE seen him, and the interview did me 
good. I met him thirty miles from the border 
of Thibet, when on my tramp in Bhutan and in- 
dependent Sikkim in May, 1892. He is a Roman 
CathoHc missionary, but my hour's interview with 
him confirmed the impression I had received from 
others that he was a godly, evangelical, zealous 
Christian missionary. 

I have seen other such evangelical missionaries 
connected with the Romish Church. I met one 
in Jerusalem in 1874, with whom I had very 
many hours of intimate communion, as day by 
day he came to me and asked me to tell him 
more of my missionary life in India, of our op- 
portunities, our labors, our trials, our hindrances, 
our successes. How earnestly did he rejoice over 
our successes, in his joy at hearing of heathen 
brought to accept of Jesus Christ as their Sa- 
viour seeming to be perfectly oblivious of the fact 
that his church branded me as a heretic ! And 

181 



182 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

when, after a week of such pleasant Christian in- 
tercourse, I left him to go on my journey, he 
threw both arms around my neck, and kissed me 
on one cheek and on the other, and with tears in 
his eyes he bade me good-by until we should 
meet before the great white throne, each with his 
sheaves garnered for the Master. 

I met such a one years ago in India, I am 
thankful to say, of the purity and holiness of 
whose life hundreds were ready to bear loving 
testimony, and who on his death-bed requested 
that he might see me, telling his attendant priest 
that he and that American missionary had in 
years gone by had such pleasant spiritual inter- 
course, and now he wished to see me once more 
before we should meet in those " many mansions." 

Yes, I thank God that the Church of Rome, 
with all its superincumbent superstitions and 
errors, cannot prevent some born in her com- 
munion and working under her orders from com- 
ing out into the clearer light and working for God 
and for souls, relying solely on Jesus Christ as 
the way and the truth and the life. And such a 
one I think I found on the borders of Thibet, who 
had for thirty-six consecutive years been trying 
to effect an entrance into that kingdom to carry 
into its darkness the light of the gospel. 

He gave me his history. It helped me ; it will 
help others. In 1856, thirty-six years before, 



THE STICK-TO-IT MISSIONARY 183 

Father Andrew D , having completed a thor- 
ough training in the schools of the Propaganda, 
was sent out to India commissioned as " mission- 
ary apostolic to Thibet," and was directed to gain 
an entrance into that sealed kingdom from India. 
He came to Darjeeling and tried to secure an 
entrance, but was driven back. He went to 
northwest India, to the hill states lying between 
Simla and Afghanistan, and early in 1857 suc- 
ceeded in crossing the border, but was arrested 
and sent back to Agra. The mutiny came on. 
He was foiled in every attempt to cross the bor- 
der, and came near losing his life several times. 

In 1858 he received orders to sail to Canton 
and try to effect an entrance through China. He 
went up the river from Canton and, pressing on, 
made an entrance, but was soon arrested and with 
indignities sent back to Canton. He spent an- 
other year studying the Thibetan language and 
customs, being joined by two other priests, who 
were to go with him as his assistants. After a 
year's study, investigation, and preparation, they 
started up the river again as Chinese traders, 
having adopted Chinese costume and customs. 
As such they once more crossed the border, and 
succeeded in securing a trading site, and built 
themselves a house. They spent three years un- 
questioned, carrying on trade as a blind, but busy- 
ing themselves night and day in studying the 



184 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

language and the people and making tentative 
translations of the Gospels into Thibetan. 

At last they were suspected ; they were found 
out. A squad of Thibetan soldiery came by 
order, and tore down their house before their 
eyes, and, handcuffing them, marched them across 
the border into China. They crossed the river 
which divides Thibet proper from Chinese Thibet, 
and were for carrying them on farther ; but the 
missionaries refused to go farther, declaring that 
they were now within Chinese jurisdiction, and 
defying the Thibetan soldiery to force them far- 
ther. After a time the soldiery gave way and 
retired to their own country. 

Father Andrew and his companions at once 
erected on the bank of the river, looking across 
into Thibet, a mission house and an orphanage 
and a press, and gathered in Thibetan boys to 
train and Christianize. Word came from the 
home authorities with reinforcements, large ones, 
and funds, and Father Andrew built eleven mis- 
sion houses and had fourteen priests under his 
supervision, all working for Thibet, though not in 
it. An uprising took place. Their eleven houses 
were torn down and their schools scattered. 
Quietly he went to work and built in other places, 
still on the border, but in vain endeavoring to 
get in. 

The powers at home then sent him orders, 



THE STICK-TO-IT MISSIONARY 185 

after fourteen years of unsuccessful effort to get 
in from China, to try India once more, and leav- 
ing the superintendency of the China mission in 
other hands, he sailed once more to Calcutta, 
and going up into the kingdom of Bhutan en- 
deavored to get into Thibet from there. Again 
was he arrested and sent back into British India. 

After various other unsuccessful attempts to 
enter Thibet from different points in the Hima- 
layas, convinced at length that the time was not 
yet, he went up to the newly acquired British 
territory wedging in between the kingdom of 
Bhutan and the kingdom of Sikkim, and built a 
mission house there on the traders' route between 
Lhassa (Thibet) and Calcutta, and within thirty 
miles of the border of Thibet, and established a 
school for training boys in the Thibetan language 
and preparing them to enter Thibet as an army- 
corps so soon as it should be open. There he 
has been for the last twelve years. It is a halt- 
ing-place for Thibetan traders, who bring down 
thousands of horse-loads of wool for the Calcutta 
market, and week by week he talks with and 
preaches to these coming and going traders, and 
is trying to perfect himself in the dialects of all 
the diflferent provinces of Thibet from which the 
traders come. 

There I found him ; there he poured into my 
ear, as that of a sympathizing fellow-missionary, 



186 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

the story of his life, an epitome of which I have 
given. He is now a gray-haired, emaciated man 
of sixty-two, but as full of enthusiasm for carry- 
ing the gospel into Thibet as when he arrived in 
Darjeeling thirty-six years ago; and his bright 
eyes kindled as he told me of the effort of his life, 
yet to be successful, because the work is of God 
and not of man. 

He brought and laid in my lap, the fruit of 
twenty years' toil, a Thibetan-Latin dictionary of 
seven hundred pages of manuscript in his own 
handwriting, saying that this was the fifth and 
final revision, — the fifth time that he had written 
it all out with his own pen, — and that now, under 
orders from the Propaganda, he was just about 
going to Hong Kong, where they have a fine 
Thibetan press, to carry the dictionary through 
the press, that it might be a help to those mis- 
sionaries of all nationalities who should enter 
Thibet, though perhaps he might not live to 
do so. 

But, best of all, he had also in manuscript a 
perfected translation of the Gospel of John, which, 
in connection with his intercourse with the traders 
and travelers from all Thibet, he had been put- 
ting into such clear and idiomatic language as to 
be understood of all the people, which he was 
going immediately to print, so that, if he could 
not go into Thibet himself, he could send hun- 



THE STICK-TO-ir MISSIONARY 187 

dreds of these Gospels in by return traders, and 
so let the people of secluded Thibet know of 
Him who is the way and the truth and the life. 

" Ah," said I to myself, as he showed me and 
told me this, " even a Roman Catholic missionary, 
who chooses the Gospel of John first to translate 
and scatter among the people, — that gospel that 
makes the most of the divinity and all-sufficiency 
of Jesus Christ and has the least to say of the Vir- 
gin Mary, — cannot but be a co-worker in bring- 
ing all these kingdoms into the one kingdom of 
Christ!" 

What a lesson to some of us who complain of 
slow work and Httle success! Thirty-six years 
of foiled effort, and yet enthusiastic and hopeful 
as ever. God give us such stick-to-it-iveness ! 



XIX 

UNHATCHABLE INK-BOTTLES; OR, TAUGHT 
BY A HEN 

Yes, I have been taught by a hen this week, 
and the lesson has done me good. 

You must know that the hens in India are 
members of the family. They live in the houses 
of the Hindus as much as the children. They 
feel perfectly at home, and the children pick them 
up in their arms as we would a kitten, and they 
have no hesitation in laying an egg in the best 
place in the house they can find. I have known 
of a native gentleman who took off his gold-bor- 
dered gauze turban and carefully placed it upside 
down on a mat in the corner of the room while 
he was eating his dinner, and when he rose and 
wished to put the turban on quickly, he found 
the pet hen quietly sitting in it, laying an egg. 

But to return to my lesson. One of my young 
native assistants came in from his village, six 
miles out, where he is endeavoring to instruct a 

188 



UNHATCHABLE INK-BOTTLES 189 

congregation of those who have lately renounced 
heathenism and placed themselves under Chris- 
tian instruction, and presented the diary of his 
month's work for my inspection. For we wish to 
know in how many and in which of the surround- 
ing heathen villages each native assistant has 
preached during the month, what chapters he has 
read and expounded to the new Christians at 
daily evening prayers in the school-house, and so 
on, in order that we may give the better counsel 
and direction for the next month. His diary was 
this time written in three different colors of ink. 
I asked the reason. 

" Well, sir," said he, " you see our pet hen was 
determined to sit." 

"Well, what then?" 

" Why, we would not let her, and kept all the 
eggs out of her reach." 

''Yes; go on." 

"Well, sir, one morning — it was the loth, for 
you see the color of the ink changes then — I 
came in from my morning preaching in a heathen 
village a mile north, and found that that hen had 
come in while my wife was in the kitchen, and 
jumped on to my low writing-desk, and scratched 
off the small brownstone ink-bottle into a corner. 
The ink had all run out ; but there she was sit- 
ting on that bottle, determined to hatch that if 
we would not give her eggs. I had to fight to 



190 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

get it away from her, she was so resolved to sit 
on it. The ink was all gone, and as I had no 
more black ink I had to use blue." 

''Well," said I, laughing, ''how is it that a 
week later you changed again to red?" 

*' Why, you see, sir, I kept the blue-ink bottle 
hung up on the wall out of reach for a week, till 
I thought she had forgotten about it. At all 
events, I forgot, and went out one day and left 
this bottle open on the desk, just as I had been 
using it. And, sir, when I came back, there was 
the old hen with this ink-bottle under her in the 
same corner as before, and a streak of blue ink 
on the floor all the way up to the corner, and the 
bottle empty. I had nothing but red ink left in 
the house, and so I had to use that until I could 
come in here and get some more black ink." 

" Well," said I, laughing again, " what have 
you done with the old hen? " 

''Why, we thought that if she was so deter- 
mined to sit we had better furnish her eggs to sit 
on. She is sitting on seven eggs in that very 
corner now." 

" Well," said I, " she gained her point by a firm 
persistence in attempting to do her duty accord- 
ing to the light she had ; and it is a lesson that 
you and I may well heed for ourselves." 

I have thought it over a good deal since and 
I keep extracting comfort from it, W^ mission- 



UNHATCHABLE INK-BOTTLES 191 

afies here in India have some very poor material 
to work upon, and some that seems to our eyes 
promising, and we do not know that it will not 
spring into life any more than Mistress Hen com- 
prehended the fact that the ink-bottles would not 
hatch. We work on with zeal and earnestness ; 
the Master sees our persistent effort, knows that 
it is perhaps fruitless on that material, and honors 
our purpose of service to Him by substituting 
more promising material. 

There is a village of people fifteen miles from 
here for whose conversion I have worked hard 
for some years. I did think them promising, but 
they remain still unmoved and now seem almost 
as though they had no germ of life in them ; but 
we have worked on. To-day comes in word 
from five families, living a mile north of them, — 
of a higher caste and of much more intelligence, 
but among whom we had not worked except 
casually, — saying that they wish to embrace the 
religion of Jesus and be taught to follow Him. 
*' Yes," said I, when the news reached me, " we 
have been, in our ignorance, perseveringly sitting 
on ink-bottles, and now God has given us eggs." 

Does not many an earnest minister in Christian 
lands labor and pray and yearn for the conversion 
of certain individuals in his flock ? And though 
these perchance remain cold and hard and lifeless, 
does not God often honor their earnest labor by 



192 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

sending to them other souls as seekers, of whom 
perhaps they have never thought? 

How many lessons have I drawn from this in- 
cident for my own encouragement during the 
past week ! But I will not delay to recount them. 
Every one who reads this story will be able to 
draw from it, perhaps, the very lessons which he 
most needs. Paul well summarizes one chief les- 
son when he says, '' Let us not be weary in well- 
doing : for in due season we shall reap, if we faint 
not." 

*' Sow in the morn thy seed; 
At eve hold not thy hand ; 
To doubt and fear give thou no heed ; 
Broad cast it o'er the land. 

" Thou canst not toil in vain ; 

Cold, heat, the moist and dry, 
Shall foster and mature the grain 
For garners in the sky." 



XX ^ 

WINDING UP A HORSE 

Many years ago I bought in Madras a peculiar 
kind of horse; he had to be wound up to make 
him go. 

It was not a machine, but a veritable live horse. 
When breaking him to go in the carriage he had 
been injured. An accident occurred in starting 
him the first time, and he was thrown and hurt 
and frightened. It made him timid, afraid to 
start. After he had once started he would never 
balk until taken out of the carriage. He would 
start and stop and go on as many times as you 
pleased, but it was very difficult to get him started 
at first each time he was harnessed to the carriage. 

He was all right under the saddle, an excellent 
riding horse, and would carry me long distances 
in my district work, so that I did not wish to dis- 
pose of him ; but I could not afford to keep two ; 
whatever I had must go in carriage as well as ride, 
and I determined that I would conquer. 

How I have worked over that horse ! At first 

193 



194 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

it sometimes took me an hour to get him started 
from my door. At last, after trying everything 
I had ever heard of, I hit upon an expedient that 
worked. 

I took a strong bamboo stick two feet long and 
over an inch thick. A stout cord loop was passed 
through a hole two inches from its end ; this loop 
we would slip over his left ear down to the roots, 
and turn the stick round and round and twist it up. 

It is said that a horse can retain but one idea 
at a time in its small brain. Soon the twisting 
would begin to hurt; his attention would be ab- 
stracted to the pain in his ear; he would forget 
all about a carriage being hitched to him, bend 
down his head, and walk off as quiet as a lamb. 
When he had gone a rod the horse-boy would 
begin to untwist, soon off would come the cord, 
and the horse would be all right for the day. The 
remedy never failed. 

After having it on two or three times he ob- 
jected to the operation, and would spring about 
and rear and twitch and back, anything but start 
ahead, to keep it from being applied. We would 
have, two of us, to begin to pat and rub about 
his neck and head ; he would not know which 
had the key ; all at once it would be on his ear 
and winding up. The moment it began to tighten 
he would be quiet, stand and bear it as long as 
he could, and then ofT he would go. 




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WINDING UP A HORSE 195 

It never took thirty seconds to get him off with 
the key ; it would take an hour without. After 
a little he ceased objecting to have it put on ; he 
seemed to say to himself, *' I have got to give in 
and may as well do it at once ; " but he would 
not start without the key. In a few months he 
got so that as soon as we got into the carriage he 
would bend down his head to have the key put on^ 
and one or two turns of the key would be enough. 

Then the key became unnecessary. He would 
bend down his head, tipping his left ear to the 
horse-boy, who would take it in his hand and 
twist it, and off he would go. 

My native neighbors said, " That horse must 
be wound up or he cannot run; " and it seemed 
to be so. 

When he got so that the " winding up " was 
nothing but a form, I tried to break him of that, 
but could not succeed. I would pat him and talk 
to him and ^\v^ him a little salt or sugar or bread, 
and then step quietly into the carriage and tell 
him to go. No. Coax him. No. Whip him. 
No. Legs braced, every muscle tense for resis- 
tance ; a genuine balk. Stop and keep quiet for 
an instant, and he would hold down his head, bend 
over his ear, and look around for the horse-boy 
appealingly, saying very earnestly by his actions, 
" Do please wind me up ; I can't go without, but 
I'll go gladly if you will." The moment his ear 



196 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE « 

was touched and one twist given, off he would 
go as happy and contented as ever horse could 
be. 

Many hearty laughs have we and our friends 
had over the winding up of that horse. If I 
were out on a tour for a month or two and he 
was not hitched to the carriage, or if he stood in 
the stable with no work for a week or two dur- 
ing the monsoon, a real winding up had to take 
place the first time he was put in. We kept him 
six years. The last week I owned him I had to 
wind him up. I sold the patent with the horse, 
and learned from the man that bought him that 
he had to use it as long as the horse lived. 

I was thinking about that horse the other night, 
when it was too hot to sleep, and I suddenly burst 
into a laugh as I said to myself, " I have again 
and again, in the membership of our churches at 
home, seen that horse, that had to be wound up 
in all matters of benevolence." 

I had often thought of that horse as I went 
through our churches at home in my visit to 
America in 1876, and imagined that I recognized 
him; but the whole thing came upon me with 
such peculiar force the other night that I must 
write out my thoughts. 

There are some Christians — yes, I believe they 
are Christians — who have to be wound up by 
some external pressure before they will start off 



tVtNDlNG UP A HORSE 19? 

in aily work of benevolence. Others will engage 
in some kinds of benevolence spontaneously, but 
will not touch other benevolent efforts unless 
specially wound up. Free under the saddle, but 
balky in carriage. 

I knew of one good member of our church who 
would never give a cent to our Home Missionary 
Board unless he happened to hear of some mis- 
sionary in the West who was actually without 
the necessaries of life, and then he would send 
in liberally. It took that to wind him up. 

Another would never give to the board for 
educating young men for the ministry unless he 
happened to become acquainted with some can- 
didate who was being aided ; then his gifts would 
come in for helping that young man. 

Another would never ^w^ to the Bible Soci- 
ety unless he chanced to hear of some particular 
town out West where but two Bibles could be 
found in a population of five hundred, although 
he knew perfectly well that there were hundreds 
of such communities, among whom the Ameri- 
can Bible Society was daily endeavoring to intro- 
duce the divine Word. He must be wound up 
by a special case. 

But it was especially of my visits through the 
churches in connection with our foreign mission- 
ary work that I was thinking when I said that I 
had so often recognized my horse that had to 



198 IN THE riCEk JUNGLE 

be wound up in all the different stages of his 
training. 

Thank God, I found hosts of noble-hearted 
men and women all through the church, that 
needed no winding up ; whose conversion and 
consecration had extended down to their pockets; 
who were always at the forefront in every good 
work; who required no spasmodic appeals. 
They give from a deep-set principle and an in- 
telligent love for Christ and His cause, some 
even pinching themselves in the necessaries of 
life, as I know, to be able to give. It is on such 
that the security and continuance of our missions 
depend. We know that we can rely on them; 
they never fail us. 

But there are others that have to be *' wound 
up," willingly or unwillingly, before they will do 
anything in the missionary work. Some are very 
willing to be wound up. 

" Domine," said a good elder who had just 
introduced himself to me one day, " I have come 

in on behalf of our church at to see if you 

would not come out and give us a missionary 
talk. We ought to have sent in a collection to 
the Foreign Board months ago, but we have neg- 
lected it, and now we have been talking it over 
and have made up our minds to do something hand- 
some if you will come out there and give us a talk." 

" Well," said I, " I shall be very glad to come 



IVimiNG UP A HORSE 199 

and tell you something of our work just as soon 
as I can edge a day in between other engagements. 
But if you have made up your minds to do 
something handsome for the board, why not do 
it at once and relieve their present pressing need, 
and I will come as soon as I can and give you 
the talk all the same." 

"Oh no," said he; "we can't do that. We 
have made up our minds that we must give lib- 
erally, but we can start it easier if you come there 
and give us the talk first. You need not fear; 
we will give a good sum. That is settled, and 
it is mostly pledged; but you must come and 
talk to us first." 

I smiled and said to myself, "There is my 
horse in its third stage of training. That church 
is bending down its ear and entreating me to 
twist it, for it has made up its mind to go, only 
it requires to be wound up first." 

" Domine," said one of our earnest ministers 
to me, one Wednesday, " we raised one thousand 
dollars for the board last Sunday morning. It is 
more than usual and we are all happy over it. 
Now we want you to come over the first Sunday 
of next month and give us a missionary address." 

" Good," said I ; " that church has got one 
stage farther than my horse ever did in his train- 
ing; for they start and do the work first, and 
bend down the ear to be twisted afterward." 



200 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

Did it not give me an earnest joy to go and tell 
that church what the Lord's war in India was 
and how much they had helped it? 

A Sunday-school superintendent came to me 
one day with smiling countenance, saying, " Our 
Sunday-school has raised one hundred and 
seventy-five dollars during the past year for 
missions, and we have determined to give it to 
the work in India. The year closed three months 
ago and it is all in the hands of the treasurer; 
but we want you to come and give us a speech, 
and then it will be formally voted and sent at 
once to the board. We have been waiting all 
this time because they told us at the mission 
rooms that you were engaged up till now. When 
can you come? The money is lying idle and 
we are waiting, and we know the board needs 
the funds; so come as soon as you can." 

" Ah," said I, " everything is ready, and the 
family are in the carriage, but they have to sit 
there half an hour because the horse-boy is busy 
elsewhere, and the horse is holding down his ear 
all this time waiting for that particular horse- 
boy to come and twist it." 

I was both pained and irresistibly amused by 
an incident that occurred not two hundred miles 
from New York, where the horse was in the first 
stage of training and stoutly resisted allowing its 
ear to be touched. * 



WINDING UP A HORSE 201 

The missionary was announced to speak in the 
church on a given Sunday, when the annual col- 
lection would be taken up. A good member of 
the church — the pastor says a sincere Christian 
— was very much put out about it; had heard 
enough of these old missionaries and was not 
going to hear any more; did not believe in for- 
eign missions ; we had heathen enough at home. 

The appointed Sunday came. Mr. A and 

his family stayed away from church because they 
would not countenance the missionary address. 
They therefore missed the announcement which 
the pastor made, viz., that a telegram had been 
received that it was impossible for the missionary 
to be there ; he would come next Sunday, and the 
annual collection would be deferred until then. 

The following Sunday Mr. A and family 

all filed into their pew, serene and happy in the 
thought that they had avoided the old missionary. 
As the organ was playing the voluntary the pas- 
tor entered the pulpit from the vestry, and a 
stranger with him. The pastor took the opening 
exercises, and the second hymn was sung, when 
the pastor rose and said that Mr. , the mis- 
sionary, as announced last Sunday, would now 
address them. 

Mr. A was thunderstruck ; he did not like 

to go out in the middle of a service, and so de- 
termined to sit it through. The missionary told 



S02 IN THE TIGER JUNGLB 

his simple tale. The plates came in ; the collec- 
tion was unprecedentedly large. Mr. A 's 

plethoric pocket-book had disgorged itself upon 
the plates, and no heartier worker for foreign 
missions is found now in that church. Mr, 

A had tried his best to keep his ear from 

being twisted ; now it needs no twisting ; he has 
learned to go and loves to go. 

There was a church in our fold at home whose 
pastor was determined that it should not be wound 
up for foreign missions. He had succeeded, as 
he himself told me, in keeping all missionaries and 
secretaries and agents out of his pulpit during all 
the years of his pastorate. When the day came 
for collections for any of our boards, the fact was 
stated, the plates were passed, and those gave 
who wished. The collection, as a matter of 
course, under such a chill was a minimum. 

It required some of the very best and most 
wary manoeuvering to get hold of the ear of that 
church ; but it was obtained and twisted, and off 
it started on the trot in the missionary work, and 
since then it has annually held down its ear and 
begged to have it twisted, as it wanted to go 
more. 

Scores of incidents which occurred in my own 
experiences among the churches in America, and 
which recalled my " horse-winding," come crowd- 
ing into my mind, but I forbear. 



tVlNbiNG UP A HORSE ^OS 

For I remember the phalanx of noble churches 
that needed no such winding up, who were all 
alive and always on the alert ; who gave regularly, 
generously, nobly; who, from the pastor, the 
head, to the humblest member, prayed from the 
lips, from the heart, from the pocket, '' Thy king- 
dom come." They are always glad to get hold 
of the recruiting watchman and ask him, *' Watch- 
man, what of the night ? " but they never have 
to be wound up to start them giving. 

God give us more and more of such churches 
and more such Christians and church-members, 
so that no missionary or secretary need come to 
beg, but can come with radiant countenance and 
say, " Brethren, with the funds you are continually 
sending us for the work, we have done for the 
Master thus and thus." Then, in looking over 
our churches and our benevolent work, we shall 
no longer have occasion to remember '* the horse 
that had to be wound up." 



XXI 

BAPTISM OF A BRAHMAN 

A WEEK ago last Sabbath it was my privilege 
to baptize, in the Madanapalle church, a young 
Brahman of twenty-three years of age, who had 
been a seeker for a year and a half. His father 
is a Brahman priest, and long time teacher of a 
school in a town twenty-five miles west from here. 
The family is a family of school-teachers, his elder 
brother and all his uncles being teachers in differ- 
ent towns, and he himself has been a teacher of 
payaly or purely native, schools in different places. 

We have some-Christian village schools within 
a few miles of his town, and from them and their 
books, and from our preaching in the markets and 
fairs near there, and from Scriptures and tracts 
which we had scattered, he had learned more 
about Christianity and about Christ than his 
friends knew. ' 

One year ago, after repeated and earnest talks 
with my colleague, Rev. William I. Chamberlain, 
and myself, he had decided to come out openly 

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BAPTISM OF A BRAHMAN 205 

and embrace Christianity. He was then teaching 
in a school eight miles southeast of here, in the 
place of one of his uncles, who was absent on a 
few weeks' leave, and he promised that as soon 
as his uncle returned and released him he would 
come to Madanapalle, avow publicly his faith in 
Christ, and be baptized. Indeed, the Sabbath 
was appointed for his baptism; but he did ^ not 
appear. 

We for a time lost track of him. He was, it 
seems, induced to go and visit an uncle in the 
Mysore kingdom, who was priest and teacher; 
and that uncle succeeded in keeping him with 
him, on one pretext and another, until now. It 
was probably a part of the family plan to keep 
him away from us as far as possible ; for while 
they did not know how earnestly he was seeking 
for the truth, they did know that he often talked 
with our catechists and Christians, and they 
feared that he might be inclining toward Chris- 
tianity. 

A week ago, on Saturday, he arrived In town 
after his protracted stay in Mysore, dusty and foot- 
sore from his long journey on foot by a circuitous 
route to avoid being intercepted by his relatives, 
and found his way at once to the mission house. 
Our judicious and earnest catechist, John Souri, 
met him in the street on his way to the house, 
and after a good talk with him came with him to 



206 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

me, and we had a long, close, personal talk and 
prayer. 

He was determined he would wait no longer. 
His examination for reception was thoroughly- 
satisfactory. That evening he cut off his Brah- 
manical tuft of hair and his Brahmanical cord, and 
the marks of his deity on his forehead, which he 
had till then allowed to remain to avert suspicion, 
were removed, and he ate his evening meal with 
the catechist's family and slept there; and on 
Sabbath morning at our early morning service, 
with a face radiant with joy, he knelt and received 
the triune name upon his forehead, and was in- 
corporated into Christ's visible church. 

His old name bad been the names of two of 
the Hindu gods. He asked for a new name, and 
took the name of Yakob John Rayappa, the last 
being the Telugu for Peter, or " Rock," as he 
wished it to be known that he would stand firm 
as a rock in his new faith. 

The church was crowded, many non- Christians 
being present to witness the baptism of a Brah- 
man, for it had become known outside that it 
would take place. 

It fell to me to conduct the service. I preached 
on " what Christ has done, does, and will do for 
His people." Among the non- Christians pres- 
ent was a Brahman of some thirty years of age, 
who has long been very near the kingdom of 



BAPTISM OF A BRAHMA}^ 207 

heaven. It is only his family that keeps him 
from coming out openly. The two whose at- 
tention was most intently — almost painfully in- 
tently — fixed upon the whole sermon as the sub- 
ject developed itself, from Christ's determination 
in the eternal counsels to give Himself to save 
sinners down through the preparation, through 
His Ufe and sacrificial death on earth, through 
His mediatorial intercessions for us in glory, until 
the final and complete coming of His kingdom, 
were the Brahman who had just received bap- 
tism, and whose face beamed with joy, and the 
Brahman who wanted, but dared not yet, to em- 
brace Christ openly. He makes no secret of his 
belief in Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the world, 
but as long as he refrains from being baptized and 
breaking his caste his friends do not trouble him. 
He is not satisfied with his position, and we are 
not ; he says he will come out openly for Christ 
ere long. Earnest and continued prayers are 
needed for such young men who wish to but 
dare not come out and take Jesus Christ as their 
Saviour. If effectual prayer is offered they will 
come. 



XXII 

BIMGANI RAMANNA; OR, UNRECKONED FRUITS 

BiMGANi Ramanna is one who has been much 
in my thoughts and in my prayers for fifteen years. 

When the people of this hamlet — Timmared- 
dipalle — came over to Christianity in July, 1872, 
and the Hindus and Mohammedans joined hands 
in persecuting the Christians and in trying to 
stamp out Christianity on its first entry into this 
region, Bimgani Ramanna was the only high-caste 
Hindu of influence who cared and dared to stand 
out as our friend. He was the only landholder 
who dared sell us a piece of land on which to 
build our school-house church and our catechist's 
house. He sold us a nice site for a moderate price, 
and gave us some of the timber for building. 

I now sit in the school-house church then 
erected on his land, and he has just been here to 
see me. He lives on the other side of the little 
sharp hill of granite rock at the foot of which our 
Christian village nestles ; he is a high-caste farmer 
and landowner, a venerable white-haired old pa- 

208 



UNRECKONED FRUITS 209 

triarch of seventy- five or eighty ; his step is feeble 
and his eyes are growing dim. 

News reached his house that I had come, — my 
first visit to these villages since returning from 
America in 1887, — and he came on foot a quar- 
ter of a mile, leaning on his staff, to see me, and 
I have been talking with him of Jesus and His 
salvation. My heart yearns toward him. 

I had been to his village and presented the 
gospel of Christ for their acceptance even before 
the people here came over to Christianity in 1872. 
He had listened with attention and interest; he 
seemed then drawn toward Christianity, at least 
so far as to wish to see those who embraced it 
fairly treated. The wrath of his neighbors came 
down on him because he sold us land and made it 
possible for us to build a church. He quietly bore 
their anger and continued his friendship with us. 

It was only a few months after that that, one 
day, as I was dismounting from my pony at Tim- 
mareddipalle, having just ridden out from Ma- 
danapalle to see the people and preach to them, 
some men came running from Ramanna's village, 
saying that his eldest son had just had his foot 
fearfully gashed with an adz ; that they could 
not stanch the flowing of the blood ; that he was 
bleeding to death; that Ramanna had seen me 
riding across the fields, and had sent them to ask 
me to come quick and save his son's life. 



210 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

In a few moments my pony had taken me to 
his house. Providentially I had my pocket sur- 
gical case with me. The arteries were taken up, 
the bleeding was stopped, his son lived, the foot 
was saved and healed. Then Ramanna turned 
upon his maligners, saying, " Now what have you 
to say ? I sold the missionary some land, and he 
has saved my son's life." And no further objec- 
tion could they make to his associating with us, 
even though I frequently went to his house and 
preached the gospel to him and his family and 
friends. Ramanna himself seemed always to lis- 
ten to the truth with gladness, but none of his 
family appeared to sympathize with him, although 
treating me with politeness and attention. 

To our successive catechists at Timmareddipalle 
and to our lower-caste converts Ramanna has all 
these fifteen years been a true friend, and has 
been, and continues to be, a frequent attendant 
upon our Sabbath services. Again and again 
through these years have I had earnest personal 
talks with him about openly embracing Christ, 
and so has our catechist, John Souri (now the 
Rev, John Souri), for whom he has a deep affection. 

'' I do believe in Jesus Christ as the Saviour of 
the world," he says, with apparently real sin- 
cerity ; " I do believe that He alone can save us 
from our sins, that He alone can give eternal life, 
and I do want Him as my Saviour," 



UNRECKONED FRUITS 211 

"Then, Ramanna, why not come out openly 
and embrace Him as your Saviour?" 

" Oh, sir, look at my family. If they would 
come with me how gladly would I come; but 
not one of them would come. My wife, my 
three sons and their wives, my three daughters, 
my five grandchildren, would all desert and spurn 
me and drive me from the house. Even that I 
could bear if that were all. But though they 
cast me out to prove their devotion to their gods, 
the neighbors and all our relations would with- 
draw from all association with them. Not one 
of my younger daughters or granddaughters 
could marry a respectable Hindu, and, not be- 
coming Christians, they would not and could not 
marry a Christian. My coming out would wreck 
my whole family, and they would have no com- 
fort, as I do, in believing in Christ, for they do 
not believe in Him. How can I do it? No, sir, 
I must wait. Perhaps by and by they will come 
with me. If they do, what joy will it be to us 
all! If we come we must come together; I can- 
not come out alone." 

** But, Ramanna, how can you wait? These 
fifteen years you have known about Jesus ; now 
you are an old man; your eyes are dim, your 
hair is snow white, your steps totter. Do you 
not want Christ as your Saviour before you are 
galled away?" 



212 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

" Yes, sir ; yes, I do want Him as my Saviour. 
Every day I pray to Him. You know now I 
sit by the hour in the catechist's house and get 
him to read to me the stories of His life and 
suffering. For many years I have not prayed to 
any other god. Are you sure, sir, that He will 
not receive me unless I bring ruin on my whole 
family by openly embracing Him now? Wait a 
little, sir ; I do believe my family are softening a 
little. Perhaps, ere many years, we can all come 
out together, and then what joy to us and you ! " 

Do you wonder that my heart yearns for the 
old man? Oh, power of the living God, come 
down and open the way for this old patriarch, 
yes, and for all his family, to embrace Thy Son 
as their Redeemer! 

Missionary statistics are valuable; they show 
what progress we are making in gathering in ac- 
knowledged adherents into the church of Christ. 
But they do not tell all the work we do ; they do 
not tell of all the souls that are sincerely moved 
with earnest desire for the salvation of Jesus 
Christ ; for there are scores and perhaps hundreds 
of men around us who are in somewhat the same 
condition as dear old Bimgani Ramanna. In all 
these cases our work has been fruitful to a certain 
extent, and of these the church should know and 
for these the church should pray ; but still, as far 
^s statistics go, they are all ** unreckoned fruits/' 



XXIII 

THE MARGOSA-TREE AND THE HINDU TEMPLE 

I WAS much interested in watching a contest 
between a margosa-tree and a Hindu temple, 
in which the margosa-tree bids fair to come off 
victor. 

We are out on a preaching tour, preaching the 
gospel in the villages around the old Mohamme- 
dan fortress at Gurramkonda, where in former 
times the nawab of Gurramkonda ruled with an 
iron hand for so long a time. Joining with Tippu 
Sultan against the English, he fell about the same 
time as Tippu, — a century ago, — and his palace 
went to decay, or at least a part of it; but the 
better part has been preserved, and serves as a 
travelers' bungalow, and in that we are now abid- 
ing, as we are evangelizing the villages over 
which he once held sway. 

The fort upon the high hill of Gurramkonda, 
or " horse mountain," used to be considered im- 
pregnable ; but in the days of modern warfare it 
fell an easy prey to English shell and cannon, 

213 



214 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

and in former years I used occasionally to come 
out here and spend a week or a fortnight in 
preaching in all the villages around. My work 
developed more in other quarters, and for nearly 
twenty years there has been no canvass of these 
villages. Now we are trying to give them once 
more the offer of life through Christ, and two of 
us missionaries are now in camp here with our 
native assistants, and are preaching through all 
these villages. 

This morning we went out in the villages from 
two and a half to five miles north. We had with 
us the record of my first tour in this region, in 
1865. Against the name of the village in which 
John Souri and I preached this morning I find 
the entry, made in 1865, *' Too much afraid to 
listen." Then they ran from us; this morning 
they gathered close around us. 

We reached the village before sunrise, and 
found the people just astir. We sang one of the 
songs of Zion to a sweet Telugu tune, and soon 
had apparently the whole population of the vil- 
lage, old and young, male and female, gathered 
around us; and earnestly did they listen as we 
explained to them God's way of saving sinners. 
They placed a native couch out for us to sit upon, 
and all took their seats in a semicircle around us. 
We each spoke at length, and they not only lis- 
tened through, but asked us many questions, and 




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MARGOSA-TREE AND HINDU TEMPLE 215 

kept us for over an hoiir before they would let 
us go. We had a most interesting time. They 
had not heard the gospel sound for twenty years, 
and now they wanted to hear all about it. 

As we were walking back we were talking 
about the growth, but the very slow growth, of 
Christianity in India and in our mission. We 
were speaking of its evidently having taken root 
in this region, and that it would stay and grow 
in spite of the arid surroundings, for it came of 
imperishable seed, when our attention was at- 
tracted to a firmly built Hindu temple by the side 
of the road between two villages, out of the roof 
of which was growing a beautiful margosa-tree. 
We stopped to look at it. 

The temple was of granite. Monolith pillars 
were placed at regular distances through it, and 
on these were resting long slabs of granite and 
chunam mortar, smoothed and polished on top, 
so as to form a perfectly waterproof roof that 
would last for centuries. From its west end rose 
its peculiar gopuram, or tower, common to Hindu 
temples. But out of the roof, at the junction of 
the tower, there was growing the margosa-tree 
to which I have referred. 

The margosa-tree reached to the top of the 
gopuram. It would soon overtop it. Unless re- 
moved, it would unquestionably in time throw 
the temple to the ground. It had evidently 



216 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 



% 



sprouted and grown since I was here twenty- 
years ago sowing the first gospel seed. Some 
monkey or some crow had carried the margosa 
fruit there to eat. A seed had dropped into a 
crevice. Some leaves had probably blown upon 
the temple, and, in the next monsoon covering 
it, had decayed and given nourishment to the 
sprouting seed. It had run a rootlet down into 
a small crack. By the aid of the casually blown 
leaves it had managed to live on. Another mon- 
soon had helped it to secure firm foothold there 
in that unpropitious place, and year by year, un- 
disturbed by any one, it has grown until it is a 
goodly tree, much more goodly than the temple 
out of which it is growing. 

The temple seems to have been deserted. I 
presume, like many other Hindu temples, the 
funds which had been left by the one who in the 
fulfilment of a vow had built it had now been 
exhausted. The Brahmans of this age are not in 
the habit of keeping up worship in a temple 
where they are not paid for it. The temple is 
not, for Hindus, a place of gathering for instruc- 
tion. The temple was deserted. 

Passers-by might have climbed up and with a 
pinch of the fingers have pulled out the tree years 
ago ; but no one did. What is every one's busi- 
ness is no one's business. It has not been mo- 
lested ; now it is a tree of size and strength. Its 



MARGOSA-TREE AND HINDU TEMPLE 217 

Uprooting now would wreck the temple ; if it lives 
its growing will wreck the temple. The temple 
was firmly built, and is strong ; the tree is endowed 
with life, and is stronger. Massive temple must 
yield to living tree. Small in its beginning, but 
instinct with life and growth, it will prove the 
victor. Years are necessary, but the result is 
sure. 

We had found our illustration without seeking 
for it. We thanked God for the parable. It was 
to me an inspiration, and I cannot refrain from 
recounting it for the encouragement of those who 
are helping us to plant the gospel seed in this 
apparently unpropitious soil. That temple repre- 
sents Hinduism as it is now; it stands firm, de- 
fiant, the representative of a once more active 
religious spirit, but now without real life. It 
presents a tremendous resistance, but the resis- 
tance of the granite temple in the main. Here 
and there, now and then, it takes on life to oppose 
the new faith, hardly ever to propagate itself. 
Its chief power of resistance is in its massive inert- 
ness. 

But the gospel seed is scattered. Some of it 
finds its way into unseen cracks and crevices ; it 
is not noticed; no one takes the trouble to root 
it out. The gospel seed is germinating in thou- 
sands of unsuspected places. It is already, almost 
unnoticed, here and there towering over the 



218 IN THE TIGER JUNGLE 

gopurams of heathenism. Day by day are we 
introducing the seed into new crevices. Some 
will never take root. It has ever and everywhere 
been so. Some will grow. The heathen temples, 
all these shrines that exalt themselves between 
man and his Saviour, will crumble, and the tree 
whose leaves are for the healing of the nations 
will grow and blossom and fruit all through this 
sin-cursed land. I hear the voice wafted from 
the beautiful leaves of the margosa-tree : " I will 
bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah 
an inheritor of My mountains. . . . For as the 
days of a tree are the days of My people. They 
shall not labor in vain, . . . for they are the seed 
of the blessed of the Lord." " His name shall 
endure forever: ... all nations shall call Him 
blessed. And blessed be His glorious name for- 
ever: and let the whole earth be filled with His 
glory. Amen, and Amen." 



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Batchelor. With 80 illustrations. i2mo, cloth 1.50 

" Replete with information of all sorts about t^e Ainu men, 
women and children." — The Nation. 

A Winter in Nortti Cliina. By Rev. T. M. Morriz. Introduc- 
tion by Rev. R. Glover, D.D., and a map. lamo, cloth 1.50 

" An intelligent, recent and grandly encouraging report." — 
Tkg Independent. 

James Oilntour of Mongoiia. His Diaries, Letters and Reports. 
Edited and arranged by Richard Lovett, M.A. With three 
photogravure portraits and other illustrations. 8vo, cloth, gilt 

top 1.75 

" A vivid picture of twenty years of devoted and heroic 
service." — The Coni re^ationalist. 

James Qiimour and His Boys. Being Letters to his sons in 
England. With facsimiles of letters, a map and other illustra- 
tions. i2mo, cloth 1.25 

Clsinese Cliaracteristics. By Arthur H. Smith. Second Edition, 
Revised. With 16 full-page half-tone illustrations, from new and 
original photographs. 8vo, cloth 2.00 

"The best book on the Chinese people."— 7%* N. Y. Exam- 
iner. 
In tlie Par Bast. Letters from China. By Geraldine Guinness. 
Edited by her sister. With introduction by Rev. J. Hudson 
Taylor. Fully illustrated. 4to, cloth, ornamented 1.50 

Olances at Cliina By Rev. Gilbert Reid, M.A. Illustrated. 
Tamo, cloth ^ . ^ 

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Missions and Missionaries. 

Horeign Missions After a Century. By Rev. J. S. Dennis. D.I/. 
Princeton Seminary Lectures, 1893. Third Edition. 8vo, 
cloth $1 .50 

"A broad, philosophical and systematic view of missionary 
•work in its relation to the living Church."— T-^^ Independent. 

The Student Missionary Enterprise. Proceed ingfs of the Second 

International Convention of the Student Voluntary Movement 
for Foreign Missions. Detroit, 1894. 8vo, cloth, gilt top. . . . 1.50 

Tlie World's Missionary Conference Reports. Proceedings of 
the Centenary Conference on the Protestant Missrons of the 
World, London, 1888. Edited by Rev. James Johnston, F.S.S., 
Secretary of the Conference. Two large 8vo volumes, over 
1,200 pages, cloth 2.00 

Manual of Modern Missions. Containing Historical and 
Statistical Accounts of the Principal Protestant Missionary 
Societies in America, Great Britain, and the Continent of 
Europe. By Rev. J. T. Gracy, D.D. i2mo, cloth 1.25 

TIte Story of Uganda and ttie Victoria Nyanza Mission. By 

Sarah G. Stock. With a map and illustrations. i2mo, cloth, 1.25 

Among ttte Matabele. By Rev. David Carnegie. With an 
account of Khama, Chief of the Bechuanas, and many illustra- 
tions. i2mo, cloth 60 

Kin-da-slwn's Wife. An Alaskan Story. By Mrs. Eugene S. 
Willard, Home Missionary to Alaska, of the Presbyterian Board 
of America. Illustrated. Third Edition. 8vo, cloth 1.50 

Heavenly Pearls Set in a Life. A Record of Experiences and 
Labors in America, India, and Australia. By Mrs. Lucy D. 
Osborn. Illustrated. i2mo, cloth 1.50 

The Holy Spirit in Missions. By Rev. A. J. Gordon, D.D. 
Graves Lectures, 1892. i2mo, cloth, gilt top 1.25 

The Life of John Kenneth Mackenzie, Medical Missionary to 
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Medical Missions: Their Place and Power. By John Lowe. 
Secretary of the Edinburgh Medical Society. Third Edition. 
izmo, cloth 1.50 

The Evangelization of the World. A Record of Consecration, 
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The Greatest Work in the World: The Evangelization of all 
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"Do Not Say; ** or. The Churches' Excuses for Neglecting- the 
Heathen. By J. H. Hosburgh, M.A. 97 pages, i2a»>, 
paper net, .xo 

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Missionary Biography Series. 

(ZZZfiSSS) 

•* These are not pans of milk, but little pitchers of cream. Jf 
there (fz any belief brief biographical sketches for general t*»e cm 
educators of the young, and as a m.eans of general stimulation to 
tht missionary spirit, we have not met them anywhere.^' 

— Rkv. a. T. Pikrson, D.D. 



Fully illustrated. i2mo, cloth, each, 75 cents. 

SET No. I. 

Containing Volumes 1 to 6, boxed, $4. so. 

J. Griffith John, Founder of the Hankow Mission, Central 
China. By Wm. Robson. 

2. Robert Moffat, the Missionary Hero of Kuruman. By David 

J. Deane. 

3. James Chalmers, Missionary and Explorer of Rarotonga 

and New Guinea. By Wm. Rnbson. 

4. William Carey, the Shoemaker who became a Missionary. 

By Rev. John B. Meyers. 

5. Robert Morrison, the Pioneer of Chinese Missions. By 

Wm. J. Townsend. 
5. Bishop Patteson, the Martyr of Melanesia. By Jesse Page 

SET No. 2. 
Containing Volumes 7 to 12, boxed, $4.50. 

7. Samuel Crowther, the Slave Boy who became Bishop of the 

Niger. By Jesse Page. 

8. Thomas J. Comber, Missionary Pioneer to the Congo. By 

Rev. John B. Meyers, 
g. Missionary Ladles In Foreign Lands. By Mrs. E. R. 
Williams. 

xo. John Williams, the Martyr Missionary of Polynesia. By 
Rev. James J. Ellis. 

XI. James Calvert; or. From Dark to Dawn in Fiji. By R. 
Vernon. 

X2. Henry Martyn: His Life and Labors; Cambridge— India- 
Persia. By Jesse Page. 

SET No. 3. 
Containing Volumes 13 to 18, boxed, $4.50. 

13. David Bralnerd, the Apostle to the North American Indians. 

By Jesse Page. 

14. Madagascar, Its Missionaries and Martyrs. By W. J. Town- 

send, D.D. 

15. Thomas Birch Freeman, Missionary Pioneer to Ashanti, 

Dahomey, and Egba. By Rev. John Milum. 

16. Amid Greenland Snows; or, The Early History of Arctic 

Missions. By Jesse Page. 

17. Reginald Heber, Bishop o* Calcutta. By Arthur Jlontcfiorc 

;8. Among the MaofJs* 



Adventure and Travel. 

Heroes of the Ooodwia Saads. By Rev. Thos. S. Treanor, 

M. A. With many illustrations. 8vo, cloth $1.50 

" If boys who are searching for thrilling stories would read 
books of this kind, they would be both profited and delighted." 
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The Log of a Sky- Pilot; or, Work and Adventure on the Good- 
win Sands. By Rev. Thos. S. Treanor, M.A. Illustrated, i2mo, 
cloth 1.50 

Among the Tibetans. By Isabella Bird Bishop, author of "Un- 
beaten Tracks in Japan." With 21 illustrations by Whymper. 
i2mo, cloth i.oo 

Accurate information concerning a country into which 
travelers are rarely allowed to enter, by a persistent explorer of 
the by-ways and waste places on the earth. 

Kin-da-Shon*s Wife. An Alaskan Story. By Mrs. Eugene S. 
Willard, Missionary to Alaska. Illustrated. 8vo, cloth ... . 1.50 

" It should be in every Sunday School library, and in the 
possession of every one Avho wishes to be informed of success- 
ful and hopeful missionary operations." — North and West. 

Among the Maiabele. By Rev. David Carnegie. With portraits, 

maps and other illustrations. i2mo, cloth 60 

" Interesting, instructive and useful." — Christian Work. 

The Story of Uganda and the Victoria Nyanza Mission. By 
Sarah G. Stock. With a map and many illustrations. i2mo, 
cloth 1.25 

" Tells the story broadly, and with a catholic comprehension 
of all the workers in it."—The Independent. 

The Chronicles of the Sid; or, the Life and Travels of Adelia 
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" Deserves a wide reading and a high place in the library of 
travel and narrative. A refreshingly cheerful book — natural 
and wholesome." — The Outlook. 

The Wire and the Wave; or, Cable-Laying in the Coral Seas. 
By J. Munro. A tale of the submarine telegraph. Profusely 
illustrated. Svo, cloth 1.75 

Uncle Towser. A story for boys, young or old. By Rev. A. G. 
Malan, M. A. Illustrated, Svo, cloth 1.75 

Saint Martin's Summer; or, a Romance of the Cliff. By Rose 
Porter. i2mo, cloth 1.25 

" It is a stimulating, healthful story, good for the summer's 
outing or the winter^s fireside. Of all the books that haVe 
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bound/'— T:^^ Golden Rule. 

Robinson Crusoe. By Daniel De Foe. Complete Edition. Illus- 
trated, i?mo, cloth , , , .,..,,,,.,,,.,,... i.gp 



Standard Works^ 

Persian Life and Customs. With Incidents of Resi- 
dence and Travel in the Land of the Lion and the Sun. 
By Rev. S. G. Wilson, M.A., for 15 years a missionary in 
Persia. With map and other illustrations and index. 
Second Edition, 8vo, cloth, $1.75. 

*' This is not merely a book of travel, but of long observa- 
tion in Persia. The author has studied with much care the 
condition of Persia and its future possibilities."— JV^. Y. 
Tribune. 

A Cycle of Cathay^ or China, South and North. With 

Personal Reminiscences. By W. A. P. Martin, D.D., 
LL.D., President Emeritus of the Imperial Tungwen Col- 
lege, Peking. With 70 illustrations from photographs and 
native drawings, and a map. 8vo, cloth decorated, $2.00. 

" No student of Eastern affairs can afford to neglect this 
work, which will take its place with Dr. Williams's 'The 
iVliddie Kingdom' as an authoritative work on China." — 
Outlook, 

Chinese Characteristics. By Rev. Arthur H. Smith, 

D.D., for 25 years a missionary in China. With 16 full 
page original illustrations, and index. Sixth thousand. 
8vo, cloth, $2.cx). 
"The best book on the Chinese ^qo'^Xq."— Examiner. 

From Far Formosa. The Island, its People and Mis- 
sions. By Rev. G. L. Mackay, D.D.j 23 years a missionary 
on the island. Well indexed. With many illustrations 
from photographs by the author, and several.maps. Fifth 
thousand. 8vo, cloth, $2.00, 
"Undoubtedly the man who knows most about Formosa." 

— Review 0/ Reviews. 

Foreign Missions After a Century. By Rev. J. S. 

Dennis, D.D. Third Edition. Bvo, cloth, $1.50. 
" A broad, philosophical and systematic view of mission- 
ary work in its relation to the living Church." — Independent. 

A Concise History of Missions. By Rev. E. M. Bliss, 

D.D. i6mo, cloth, 75 cents. In press. 

A systematic and thorough historical study of missions 
in all ages, by the editor of the "Encyclopedia of Missions," 
an acknowledged expert. 

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